Gregor Paul: The most pressing All Blacks concern is not the number 10 jersey

Now that the Crusaders have won their fifth title, everyone will want to talk about Richie Mo’unga.

It’s hard not to. The Crusaders had barely a toe-hold in the Super Rugby Aoeteroa final midway through the second half when they were reduced to 13 men – something which appeared to trigger a biological reaction within Mo’unga.

It’s as if there is an emergency response gene buried in his DNA – like the chameleon that can change colour or the pufferfish that can double in size – Mo’unga has an innate ability to rescue the Crusaders when they are in trouble.

On Saturday night he hit the Chiefs with three power plays in quick succession – dropping a goal, making a damaging clean break and then raking 60 metres with a momentum-changing clearance kick.

Those three acts enabled the Crusaders to weather their numerical disadvantage and take control of the game and hence the little No 10 is once again the talk of the town as he so often is.

The little maestro No 10 is undoubtedly touched by genius and blessed with the humility to play with the cool-headed composure and accuracy to ensure his bouts of magic are not all that he offers.

Having produced another supremely impressive performance when it matters to finish the season as not only the best first-five in the competition, but arguably as the best player in the country, there will be an increasing number of voices heard saying that there is only one possible choice at No 10 for the All Blacks now.

While Mo’unga has been operating in the relentlessly intense world of Super Rugby Aotearoa, Beauden Barrett has been playing in Japan where the games are fast and aerobic but missing the sense of physical danger that defines rugby in New Zealand.

He’s made it clear from over there that his heart is set on returning to his preferred No 10 jersey when he comes back to New Zealand and so of course we now have a scenario set up for debate and possible controversy when the time comes for the All Blacks to determine how to use both players.

But as easy as it will be to get caught up in this selection dilemma and see it as the defining factor in shaping the All Blacks in 2021, it really isn’t.

If the Super Rugby final, and indeed the whole season, enforced anything, it was that the defining contest in modern rugby continues to be between the respective forward packs and that the real superstars are not the blokes wearing No 10, but those whose task it is to win possession and generate momentum.

The biggest and most telling moments in the final weren’t Mo’unga’s: the real magic came from the Crusaders pack who managed to hold their scrum together despite being a man short and who managed to pressure the Chiefs lineout and ultimately reduce them to throwing long over the top to Damian McKenzie as their preferred option.

The Crusaders forwards also produced a number of scintillating passages where they charged through their opposites, displaying technically brilliant body positions and incredible skill-levels to off-load.

The French, so easily ridiculed as archaic and needlessly bound by tradition, have always believed in the no scrum, no win mantra and perhaps it is time New Zealanders bought a little harder into this.

The real heroes in Christchurch have been on show all season. Codie Taylor, Sam Whitelock, Michael Alalalatoa, Joe Moody, George Bower and Scott Barrett have been grinding tough metres all season.

They and their fellow tight forwards have been the competition’s most dominant scrum and best performing lineout.

They haven’t been as consistent or as clinical as they have in previous campaigns, but still, they have been the group that has best delivered in what has become in the eyes of the New Zealand rugby public, the forgotten art of winning rugby.

Rugby has moved into the entertainment sphere, which may explain why there is this tendency to promote beauty rather than the beast. But look at the nature of the All Blacks’ most painful recent defeats and the story is writ large in almost every scene. The Pumas beat up the All Blacks pack last year, just as the English did in the World Cup semi-final and the Irish in 2018.

There needs to be a reawakening among the New Zealand rugby fraternity about who exactly are the real stars of the game and that it takes more than a fleet-footed first-five to win the big tests.

It takes technical expertise, discipline, unyielding aggression and sheer bloody-mindedness from the pack.

The Mo’unga or Barrett debate is the rugby equivalent of the political frivolity that surrounded John Key’s attempt to create a new flag for the country.

Just as there were serious issues of substance on the political landscape back in 2015 when the flag referendum was held, so too are there far more pressing rugby concerns now than whether Mo’unga or Barrett should be the first choice No 10.

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