Bundee Aki’s decision to choose Ireland makes him a target for All Blacks

Johnny Sexton is arguably the greatest and definitely the crankiest in Ireland's celebrated lineage of outhalves.

Every so often, the commentators will reference former number 10s, recalling Jack Kyle or the sinewy magic of Ollie Campbell; always Ronan O'Gara leaning into the drop-kick against Wales. Tony Ward, Paul Dean, Michael Kiernan, Eric Elwood, David Humphreys: even in the bleakest years, Ireland could be relied upon to field a classy number 10.

A name rarely mentioned in that that august list is Brian Smith, the young Australian who played outhalf for two predominantly miserable seasons before heading home to pursue rugby league shortly before the 1991 World Cup.

His departure meant that he inadvertently missed out on featuring in that famous game against his home nation in Lansdowne Road that autumn. In later years, Smith would admit he should probably never have played for Ireland, that it was never truly natural to him.

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It already seems unlikely that Bundee Aki will ever end up with the same regrets.

In the build-to Saturday evening’s game, there has been a low grumbling of unhappiness emanating from the New Zealand camp about the presence of Aki in Ireland’s back line.

When the teams face each other for the ceremonial haka this evening, the New Zealanders will direct plenty of negative energy and meaningful tongue-rolls at their countryman wearing green.

Last week, Brad Shields, the England flanker, got the death stare from his former Hurricanes and New Zealand Under-20 team-mates at Twickenham.

“I didn’t take my eyes off him,” Dane Coles said, describing the experience of playing against Shields as “pretty weird”.

It’s a fair bet that, in private, the New Zealand players speak of these defections in stronger terms.

"Frustrating and disappointing," was the response of the New Zealand coach Steve Hansen after learning that Aki had signed for Connacht in 2014.

Hansen probably knew that the writing was on the wall then: Brian O'Driscoll would retire from the game in the same year as Aki arrived. Gordon D'Arcy would exit a year later: there was a black hole visible in Ireland's central axis. For two blissful seasons, Connacht rugby fans got to see Ireland's future centre partnership, Aki and Robbie Henshaw.

Popular figure

Just two years ago, Aki was still weighing up his international prospects. Born in Auckland to Samoan parents and about to become eligible for Ireland under the controversial three-year residency rule, Aki was technically up for grabs for three different countries.

His selection for Ireland, though, seemed inevitable and so it proved. Aki handled the transition from potential All Black to actual Ireland player perfectly. He is a hugely popular figure in Connacht, both on and off the field, and he has never tried to over-egg the Irish dimension.

“For me to say I am Irish that is wrong for me to say because I was not born here,” he said two years ago. “I like taking in the culture and stuff but as for being an Irish person, it is wrong for me to say I’m Irish.”

There is nothing new in rugby players born in one country playing and playing for another. Dave Gallaher, probably the most celebrated All Black of them all, was born in Donegal.

John Gallagher, the regal fullback on the All Blacks team which won the inaugural World Cup in 1987 was an English kid of Irish parentage who grew up in Lewisham and ended up almost by accident in Wellington in 1984. He was a gift from the heavens and Brian Lochore and the selectors didn't ignore it; any qualms about Gallagher's depth of emotive feeling for the Silver Fern disappeared whenever he glided onto a flat pass. He was gold.

Both of those men, though, ended up in New Zealand by circumstance and in the amateur era. The acquisition of Aki by the IRFU was just that: an international calibre centre eligible under the residency rule identified and contracted.

There were bristles of indignation this week when Gregor Paul, the rugby writer with the New Zealand Herald, described the approach as a "cold, calculating and ethically questionable recruitment policy" and "outside the spirit of the game".

It may not make for pleasant reading for Irish people but it’s a view New Zealanders are entitled to; Ireland took their guy in a way that was the definition of calculating. Whether Aki would have ever broken through to the All Blacks team must remain a tantalising what if.

And the retaliatory comparison – that New Zealand happily pluck the best Pacific Islanders to enhance their national team doesn’t quite ring true. There are strong historical and societal patterns between New Zealand and the Pacific Islands that don’t exist between Auckland and Bohermore.

Dramatic shift

Aki’s declaration for Ireland wouldn’t be such a bugbear to New Zealand but for the dramatic shift in the rivalry between the teams. For the bones of 100 years, there was an unwritten contract as to how Ireland-New Zealand games should go.

They’d meet in Dublin on some Godforsaken winter afternoon, play the anthems; the Irish would whale into the black shirt with unbridled fury for 20 minutes; the Kiwis would cut loose in the second half, put up a cricket score, say nice things about Ireland’s passion and then head for pints with their vanquished foes. They’d leave Ireland bruised, slightly hungover and ever victorious.

Somewhere along the way, Ireland became tired of that pageant. Over the course of this decade, they've managed to acquire the technical skill, size, temperament and tactical approach to fully compete with and actually beat New Zealand. They've achieved this under the coaching and direction of Joe Schmidt.

New Zealand make no secret of the fact that their next major ambition is to win the 2019 World Cup in Japan. Anything less will be a profound failure for a supremely talented generation of players.

To everyone’s surprise – and to considerable Irish delight – Schmidt’s team are, right now, regarded as the biggest obstacle to that success. Ireland aren’t as explicit in stating their ambitions for Japan and, since that first tournament in ’87, no Irish side has made it past a quarter-final. But they are ranked number two in the world; winning it all has to be on their minds. If not this time, then when?

On one level, tonight’s game is just a challenge match hijacked and hyped out of all recognition by the marketing savants. On another, it is a last chance for New Zealand to reassert something of the old, withering superiority and to plant a few long-term doubts in case the countries do meet for real in the Land of the Rising Sun.

At the heart of the confrontation stands Aki. He’ll never have a crisis of conscience over this; he’s a professional athlete in a brutal sport who wanted to feel the heat of the brightest lights. If he wasn’t going to get to perform the haka and play in famous that black shirt, then facing it on the field is the next best thing.

So there he stands.

Whatever about a lost All Black showing up in the Irish fold, the idea of Aki rampaging through New Zealand dreams next autumn is dangerous for them to consider. Little wonder, then, that they’ll be glaring daggers his way tonight. And little wonder that Aki’s Irish team-mates will be keeping a close eye on him; he’s one of their own.