Jordie Barrett pinpoints areas the All Blacks need to sharpen up

INTERVIEW: New Zealand centre Jordie Barrett highlighted the key area he feels the All Blacks need to improve in the third Test of the Greatest Rivalry series against the Springboks at FNB Stadium this Saturday.

Despite being the better team in the stats department in most areas of the game, the All Blacks suffered their first defeat in the Dave Rennie era by 26-33 at DHL Stadium on Saturday to the Springboks, who levelled the four-match series.

One of those areas is the tries scored column. At Ellis Park, the All Blacks outscored the Boks by five tries to one, and this past weekend they toppled that stat once more, crossing the whitewash four times to three.

Barrett believes the All Blacks created more than enough scoring opportunities to clinch the match, and it will be an area New Zealand will look to rectify this weekend in Soweto.

“I think when you’re a team that crowds a lot and uses the ball a lot, there’s a perception that you leave a few more [tries] out in the park.

“That’s the reality; you create a lot of opportunities, you’re going to leave more out there, but we also finish a lot of opportunities.

“Our attacking numbers are a lot better than the first Test, but we don’t win the game, and that’s strange how Test rugby works.

“Unfortunately, we probably didn’t start as well as we wanted to, particularly defensively, and we were chasing for the first half an hour of that game.”

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Barrett added that those are the things they want to focus on this week as a team.

“Yeah, we do. In some ways, a bit of a balance, some areas of our game, each thing, a half or a kick-off, probably winning a few more of those 50-50 scrap balls in the first half.

“We got a lot more in the second half, and a great dividend, so yeah, there are different areas of our game that we’re going to have to get a little bit better at if we want to step in the right direction and win a Test series”

Another concerning issue for the All Blacks is their discipline. The Kiwis conceded eight penalties to South Africa’s five, with most of them within kicking range, from which Cheslin Kolbe slotted four from as many attempts to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Barrett conceded that those penalties predominantly came from the pressure applied by the Springboks and said the All Blacks will need to tidy up that aspect of their game to avoid a repeat of what happened in Cape Town.

“Discipline is a word that gets thrown around a lot.

“When you’re forced to defend a goal line and put under a lot of pressure, unfortunately, those are things that come to a head when you’re under a little bit of pressure.

“Things such as offside lines, a bit of stuff around the ruck and maul. So, I guess it’s about mitigating set-average entries into our half and playing most of the game down there as much as possible.

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The All Blacks also lost the aerial battle for the second consecutive week.

Barrett touched on the positive side of his team’s kicking game but conceded that they’ll need to handle that of South Africa’s better.

“Yeah, if you just look at the last Test, we kicked very few contestables.

“The ones we did kick, we won back. They kicked quite a lot, and they’re often a lot shorter, so our fullback was 10 metres into the backfield.

“It’s our job to get under it where South Africa want to make it messy and get scraps.

“Unfortunately, the laws of the game at the moment don’t help a receiving team.

“We saw how Tupou [Vaa’i] was penalised. You’ve got to get up and contest. I guess you can’t stand around the area or protect your catcher, so it turns into a bit of a lottery

“We’ve got plans and ways around that in terms of trying to win as many of those as possible.

“But yeah, we’ve practised a lot; it’s a lot harder than it looks like on television.

“But we are working very hard, and a lot of our energy is going into that. Hopefully we can win a few more on Saturday because that’s what’s coming.”

He added: “We’re going to have to tidy up a lot of stuff around the air.

“Winning scraps on the ground and trying to minimise their entries into our half so they can’t get their power game on. And then getting our own game on too, trying to use the ball.”