It’s a claim that will surely send shudders through the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup rivals.
Beauden Barrett says he’s short a clip and not yet in top gear in Japan ahead of the All Blacks’ final pool game against Italy.
The fullback, who ran the water against Namibia, did say he was feeling great physically but continued to tinker on little parts of his game.
“We’ve been training really hard and it’s been gone, I’ve been working hard off the field,” Barrett said.
“We will get out there and train well and go through our plays this week and hopefully I’ll be out there on the weekend to put all that hard work into practice.”
Barrett said he felt in good shape physically after the rest but denied he was in top gear.
“No, I’m not quite there yet, short a clip a little bit,” he said.
“I’m certainly enjoying the role (at fullback) and everything is going fine from that point of view, I’m just chipping away with a couple of things.”
“It’s great and we’ve spoken about Richie and I figuring out ways to play so that we’re not in each other pocket and finding our own space and so on.”
“Whether we go forward with that plan or not, it’s something that we’re conscious of and really looking forward to working on.”
SHARE ME