New signings, especially from abroad, are usually allowed a period of grace. They generally need time to adjust to their new surrounds, new coaches, new team-mates, new competitions, new systems, new calls and new plays, and especially when they arrive with the season already a couple of months old.
They are not expected to land in a new country and within a week have a serious impact as a half-time replacement with a try assist and a try. Then, a week later, revert to a position they haven’t played for over two years and be a standout performer who finishes the try of the game.
Then again, Jordan Barrett is clearly no ordinary player. Anyone who is part of a trio of brothers with such a varied skill set, and who has played in every backline position outside of scrumhalf, is equipped to seamlessly slot into a new team.
As with RG Snyman and all of Leinster’s best overseas’ signings over the years, Barrett has already had an impact on those around him and has evidently become a leadership figure too. One could see it in his on-field dialogue with Jimmy O’Brien or even chastising Robbie Henshaw for wasting a free play against Clermont, or seemingly ending the discussion about Leinster taking the last penalty to seal the win against Connacht.. His and Snyman’s presence are also making others around them play better.
Was 2024 a successful year for Irish rugby?
Ala Isa Nacewa, there is a trademark All Blacks reliability in his basic skills which is almost old school – be it his catching, fielding, passing, kicking, tackling, running. Barrett actually makes the game look easy. The old All Blacks maxim: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Such has been his impact in two-and-a-half games after just a week to acclimatise, affording him a rest looks like good player management. It’s hard to believe any overseas signing has had such an impact in just two and a half games. Whatever about his try against Bristol, only players with his height and physicality could have completed that finish against Clermont Auvergne last Saturday week.
Connacht could again feel rightly aggrieved about yet another heavy interpro penalty count against them, but less so the lack of sanction for Barrett’s hit on Bundee Aki. Barrett’s crunch hit on Shane Jennings typified his cleanly effective tackling style.
There remains the question of where Barrett should best be accommodated, a barstool discussion which began in mid-April when his signing on a short-term contract was first announced.
Barrett maintains that – like many utility players in their youth – he had morphed into a specialist inside centre who could still play at fullback if required.
Indeed, Barrett had started 45 games in a row for the Hurricanes and the All Blacks with 12 on his back since last playing at fullback for New Zealand against Scotland at Murrayfield in March 2022.
Necessity being the mother of invention, with Hugo Keenan, Jamie Osborne and Ciarán Frawley all ruled out, Barrett played at fullback against Clermont, and so it came to pass.
After the Clermont match, Leo Cullen strongly hinted that the All Blacks want him to play at inside centre and Barrett is technically on sabbatical from, and contracted to, the NZRU until the end of this season.
Perhaps a pointer came in the mid-game reshuffle in Bristol after Barrett replaced the injured fullback Ciaran Frawley. Instead of a straight swap, Barrett came in at inside centre, with Robbie Henshaw moving to outside centre, Garry Ringrose to rightwing, Jordan Larmour to leftwing and Jimmy O’Brien to fullback. It takes Ringrose away from his preferred and best position, but on the premise of getting their best players on to the pitch, that 12-13-14 configuration could be the preferred option to start, or at least finish.
Akin to Brad Thorn’s influential role in Leinster’s 2011-12 Champions Cup success, Leinster should try to extract the absolute maximum from Barrett.
Thorn only arrived in March 2012, and played just eight games. Yet as well as leaving an indelible impression in Leinster which endures to this day with his sheer professionalism, Thorn’s seven starts included the quarter-final, memorable semi-final against Clermont in Bordeaux, and final against Ulster in their defence of the Champions Cup that season. The plusses in Thorn’s signing far outweighed any negatives.
That darned fifth star is paramount.
However Leinster’s season pans out, Barrett and Snyman are marquee signings who will help fill the Aviva. Both have quickly become almost cult figures. Both players spent half an hour after the Clermont match signing autographs and posing for selfies.
Leinster appear to have struck gold, for as well as being a quality player, like all the Barretts, he’s clearly a quality bloke who has been quickly taken in by the rest of the squad – witness the way they celebrated with him after his try in Bristol.
“I only know him [Barrett] now for a couple of weeks, so, I’ll get to know him a little bit better,” said Jacques Nienaber last week, noting that Barrett was only 27 and had already accumulated 67 caps for the All Blacks. “I think you don’t perform and play at that level for such a long period if you’re not a quality rugby player first of all.
“But then, I’ve always known he’s a quality rugby player. I coached against him a lot, but now seeing the person he is, it makes sense that he is that.”
Nienaber also interprets Barrett’s seamless arrival, ala Snyman and Rabah Slimani, as testimony to their new surrounds as well as the individuals themselves.
“He has slotted in, and it also speaks volumes for the Leinster environment. Both him and RG, and Rabah, who have also slotted in. It’s a nice environment to be part of.
“For me, coming in from the outside, like I said last time when we spoke, I think it’s a challenging environment and it gets you to deliver your best. Because everybody is delivering their best, so it’s a nice environment to be part of. It’s stimulating.”
The striking ease with which Barrett has settled in at Leinster will fuel belief that the province have made the kind of stellar signings that were a feature of the 2008-09 breakthrough Heineken Cup under Michael Cheika.
But that still doesn’t mean Leinster have a divine right to have a coveted fifth star stitched on to their jerseys in time for next season. Nor, by the same extension, does it necessarily mean that this season will be an unmitigated disaster if they don’t win the Champions Cup. Not when La Rochelle, Bordeaux Bègles and others are among the mix and, of course, most of all Toulouse.
PS: Lansdowne won the toss to host Instonians in the final of the Bateman Cup, aka the All-Ireland Cup and which dates back to 1922, on Saturday January 4th (2.30). It seems an additional pity therefore that their request to have this game played on the Aviva Stadium main pitch was rejected and so will be played on the back pitch, especially as there has been little or no nod to the club game in marking the IRFU’s 150th anniversary.
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