A halfback with six Crusaders titles who is Malcolm Marx’s club teammate in Japan has ranked Jordie Barrett above every South African. Then Bryn Hall, on James Marshall’s What A Lad Podcast on Monday, named the All Black he would keep if he could keep only one, and it was not the halfback.
“I could put it out there right now,” Bryn Hall said, and then he put it out there. Jordie Barrett is the best player in the world.
Not the best 12. Not the best All Black. The best player, anywhere, and he said it two days after Barrett’s side lost 29-24 at FNB Stadium, into a South African audience that had spent the previous week abusing him over his scrum comments.
There is a number from the same Saturday that argues back, and it comes from the outlet that first called Barrett the best 12 in the world: a 7.5, with the words “not shining on attack” next to it. What that number misses is further down. If you are already typing de Allende, hold it for six paragraphs. The site has a view on that too.
Hall was the Crusaders halfback from 2017 to 2022, a title in every one of those seasons, and was never capped by the All Blacks. Marshall, his host on What A Lad, coaches the Crusaders backs and played fullback for the Hurricanes in the 2015 Super Rugby final. Nobody at New Zealand Rugby asked either of them to say any of this.
“I think Jordie Barrett’s the best player in the world”
“I could put it out there right now… I think right now, how it sits in world rugby, I think Jordie Barrett’s the best player in the world.”
Hall knew what he was doing. His next sentence was that the show’s South African viewers would “be a little bit different in and around that”. Then he built the case.
“The collision area, if you’re looking, like, as a leader, being able to follow someone, those effort areas in that area is so good to be able to follow someone. And then the skill set, the triple threat game, his short passing game, his long passing game, his attacking kicks, his long kicking game, his goal kicking. I just don’t think there’s a more complete 12… I question if there’s a better 12 in the world right now than Jordie Barrett.”
The 12 half of that is not new, and Hall started it. In April last year, on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod, he said there was “no one better in the world than Jordie Barrett” at 12, a line Planet Rugby carried at the time. RugbyPass’s Ben Smith called him the best No.12 in the world and the next World Player of the Year in July, on the strength of ten try assists in Super Rugby Pacific, equal-most in the competition.
Then Ellis Park, 15 tackles and won five turnovers, and Paul Lewis in the New Zealand Herald asking who could refute that he was now clearly the best midfielder in the world.
Monday’s line drops the position. Best 12 has become best player in the world, and the second half of that is the part South Africa will argue with.
He would lose Cam Roigard before him
Marshall had set Barrett up as the one All Black who “nailed his role for the full 80 minutes” in Soweto. Hall went past the compliment.
“I know Cam [Roigard] is a big part of the DNA… and we probably don’t want to lose him. But losing a Jordie Barrett for that All Blacks team I think would be pretty bad for us, because you’re talking how tough he is.”
Read that again, because it is the harder claim of the two. Roigard is 25, has more than 20 Tests, and was the All Black Hall himself credited on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod with having the ball “on a platter” in Soweto. The New Zealand attack is built to give him quick ball and let him decide. Hall is not disputing that. He is saying that if one of the two goes missing, the team that loses Barrett is the one that changes shape.
His reason was the first thing he said in the skill-set answer, before any of the passing and kicking: the collision area, and a leader “being able to follow someone”. A halfback stands behind every ruck and sees who arrives first. Hall stood behind Crusaders rucks for six seasons. He is describing a 12 who hits the first carry so hard the whole line goes forward with him, which is what Marshall watched happen off the first maul on Saturday.
“Jordie Barrett must have listened, because he was a man possessed. That first one off the maul, flies up, knocks him way behind the advantage line, and pretty set after that. I thought it was just a massive statement from the All Blacks that they can do it.”
It matters this week for a reason nobody planned. Ardie Savea’s shoulder has taken the captain out of Baltimore. Luke Jacobson, who took the armband from him on 31 minutes, has flown home with an elbow injury. The leadership question is open, and Hall’s answer to a different question was an answer to that one.
Read also: the argument this site made in August that de Allende is one of the best centres in the world and nobody says it.
The Springboks case, and it is not a weak one
The South African answer arrived before Hall’s question did. On Sunday, Nick Mallett, Springboks coach from 1997 to 2000, ranked Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel as the best midfield South Africa has ever had, above Jean de Villiers and Jaque Fourie. Jim Hamilton, 63 caps as a Scotland lock, called them “the best 12 and 13 in the world at the minute” on The Big Jim Show the same weekend.
And Hall agrees with half of it. His man of the match on Saturday was not Ethan Hooker, who won the award. It was not Barrett either.
“I think Jesse Kriel for me was probably the man of the match… it’s all the effort areas that he does very well that nobody sees… The amount of times that he does that, he’s world class at it, and the big reason why that defence is so good.”
So the man who says Barrett is the best player in the world watched him play 80 minutes opposite de Allende and Kriel and gave his own award to the Springboks 13. There is no contradiction in it. Kriel had the better Saturday. Hall still has Barrett as the better player, and his reason is the third threat. The Springboks pair have two World Cup finals and the record for starts together, and the system is built on what they do without the ball. Neither of them kicks in play the way Barrett does, neither kicks goals, and Smith’s July argument was that de Allende’s job in the South African system is a narrower one than Barrett’s by design.
Narrower is not worse. It is the reason the comparison keeps ending in a draw, and the reason Hall reached past it to best player in the world.
The number that argues back
The number from Saturday is 7.5. RugbyPass, the outlet that called Barrett the best 12 in the world in July, gave him that for Soweto, with the line “another brilliant showing defensively, despite not shining on attack”. Pieter-Steph du Toit ran through him once. An early pass went straight into touch.
This site gave him an 8, and the gap is the half of his game a ratings column files under “not shining”. Barrett made a game-high 14 tackles and carried 11 times on RugbyPass’s own count, and at 28:25, with the score 12-5 and South Africa coming, he put Ethan Hooker on his back with the tackle of the half. Hooker was the man of the match. Barrett had already had him.
That tackle is the collision area Hall was talking about. It is what a 12 is for in the minutes when the attack has stopped flowing and the 10 is about to be sent to the bin.
Watch for it in Baltimore. When the Springboks halfback lifts the ball, the All Blacks inside centre does not drift. He goes forward before the first receiver has caught it, and the men either side of him go with him. Marshall’s phrase was “the way he was flying into his collisions”. A midfielder doing that for 80 minutes is not having a quiet game on attack. He is deciding where the attack happens.
That is the answer to the 7.5. The bigger claim is still open.
Best player in the world? Where the site lands
Hall is right about the 12, and he has been right about it for eighteen months. On the tape of three Tests against the midfield South Africa calls the best in the world, no inside centre alive has matched Barrett’s range, and South Africa have not produced one who can kick the goals and make 15 tackles in the same afternoon.
He is right about the order too. Lose Roigard and the All Blacks play slower. Lose Barrett and they play smaller, and Saturday’s last twenty minutes, with Savea gone and the bench giving away penalties, showed what a side without its collision leader looks like.
Best player in the world is a different claim. It belongs to the man holding the trophy, and Barrett’s side trail this series 2-1 with one Test to play. Hall put his own date on the line: “right now, how it sits in world rugby”. Baltimore is where the sentence gets its full stop, and every result in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry so far says South Africa hold the word “best” until then.
On the record, then: best 12 in the world, no hedge. Best player in the world needs a trophy behind it, and the next chance to change that is Saturday.
Frequently asked
Is Jordie Barrett the best player in the world?
Bryn Hall, the former Crusaders and Blues halfback, said on the What A Lad Podcast on Monday 7 September that Jordie Barrett is “the best player in the world” right now. RugbyPass and the New Zealand Herald have both called him the best 12 or best midfielder in the world this season. South African pundits, including former Springboks coach Nick Mallett, rate Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel as the best midfield pairing in the game.
What did Bryn Hall say about Cam Roigard?
That the All Blacks “probably don’t want to lose him”, but that losing Jordie Barrett “would be pretty bad for us” by comparison. His reason was Barrett’s work in the collision area and the completeness of his skill set, the full passing and kicking range plus the goal-kicking.
How did Jordie Barrett play against the Springboks at FNB Stadium?
He made a game-high 14 tackles and 11 carries on RugbyPass’s count, and produced the dominant tackle on Ethan Hooker at 28 minutes. WeTalkRugby rated him 8 out of 10 in a 29-24 defeat. RugbyPass gave him 7.5 and said he did not shine on attack.
Your turn
Two ways to read Monday. Either Hall said out loud what the tape of three Tests has been saying since Ellis Park, or a Kiwi halfback ranked a Kiwi 12 above two South Africans who have just beaten him twice. The site backs the 12 claim and the Roigard order. Best player in the world is the one still open. If you would keep Roigard and let Barrett go, or if de Allende is your 12 of the world, settle it below. Name a better 12. Not a better midfield, a better 12.
