Aaron Cruden
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The missed opportunity (from injuries, availability and incumbent players) was the Cruden/SBW partnership in tests.
It never happened enough but the cameos we had were awesome.For the same reasons it never happened enough at the Chiefs either.
That injury wrecked half an hour against Ireland in the 60-0 thrashing had the makings of being Cruden's highlight game to end them all. He was simply on fire that night and the combo of him making halfbreaks with SBW steaming in off his shoulder was the stuff that has you wondering how someone can be that good.
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Excellent at Super Rugby level.
Very good at AB level.
Always felt he struggled a bit if the pack wasn't on top, which differentiates the greats from the goods.
Goal-kicking was acceptable, but not world-class.
Decent defender, and developed some nice kicks out of hand.I've been watching since '87. Carter, Mehrts, Spencer on his day are probably all better. I'd most definitely have him ahead of Tony Browne though, as much as I like Tony we are talking a bit journeyman at AB level.
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He's started a World Cup final and won 2 Super Rugby competitions, so I absolutely don't blame him for taking the sure thing. Guaranteed millions or fighting for a place in history... I'd probably take the money too.
That said, there's still way more he could have achieved, and even though he should be in the prime of his career he is not sticking around to fight for his jersey. I think ranking him alongside our all time greats would be based on potential, because he never actually nailed down the starting position for a decent length of time. Rattue put out an article the other day... obviously I didn't click on it but the headline called Cruden the nearly man of NZ rugby, which I think is about right.
Personally, I haven't seen a better first five at playing at the line, and his ability to bring his backline into the game is up there with the very best (better than Carter IMO). @Kirwan mentioned not playing at first receiver enough, which isn't really a problem for me because the results came either as a result of his positioning or in spite of it, but either way the results were good so we won't know. But yes, long kicking game and goal kicking were an issue. Sometimes he overplayed the chipkick, but even Carter had that issue... sometimes I think it's a Kiwi thing.
Probably about equal with Spencer for me, ahead of Brown and Evans, but behind Carter, Merhts, Fox.
I wish he was sticking around, I'd love to see him and Barrett pushing each other for that spot.
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Slightly off topic,
For a country who has been so good at rugby , with the exception of carter , I'm not so sure we have produced the quality of 10s that you would expect from us , considering how dominant we have been overall
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@kiwiinmelb said in Aaron Cruden:
Slightly off topic,
For a country who has been so good at rugby , with the exception of carter , I'm not so sure we have produced the quality of 10s that you would expect from us , considering how dominant we have been overall
Well, our best 10s tend to own the position for nearly 10 years at a time, so it makes it tough to generate lots of greats at that rate. Fox, Mehrts, Carter pretty much took care of the 80s, 90s, 00s.
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@kiwiinmelb that's a completely fair point, however only at certain times, and really only because we are used to having 2 brilliant players in every position. The progression of Fox-Mehrts-Spencer-Carter is not a bad run (give or take a year here or there) but there was rarely a guy behind him really pushing for the spot.
Do we credit big Steve again for building a level of depth that allows us to lose Carter and Cruden in a relatively short space of time, and not have anyone even blink?
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@kiwiinmelb said in Aaron Cruden:
Slightly off topic,
For a country who has been so good at rugby , with the exception of carter , I'm not so sure we have produced the quality of 10s that you would expect from us , considering how dominant we have been overall
The great thing about rugby is that it's truly a team sport. With 15 guys on the field and the continuity of the game, it's not an easy sport to be an outstanding 'individual'. Yes there are the occasional moments of individual brilliance, but even then most of those have had lead up or finishing moments involving others.
My expectation with the ABs is that they perform as a team rather than looking for say the 1st 5 to be the standout dominant player.
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@mariner4life said in Aaron Cruden:
@kiwiinmelb that's a completely fair point, however only at certain times, and really only because we are used to having 2 brilliant players in every position. The progression of Fox-Mehrts-Spencer-Carter is not a bad run (give or take a year here or there) but there was rarely a guy behind him really pushing for the spot.
Has any team had a better run in modern times? I think other countries tend to have much lower lows than us
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@Duluth no, they haven't. It's like our run at 7, it's fucking ridiculous, and must piss other countries off no end.
"Not a bad run" was tongue in cheek.
But according to my memory, the 2IC was usually solid rather than spectacular. Unlike 7, or wing, or fullback, or even hooker.
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@mariner4life Yeah I knew you were deliberately understating things
I was asking the question in relation to the @kiwiinmelb post. If we really aren't producing as many quality 10's as we should be.. has someone else done better?
There's some good 10's that have come out of Australia, England, SA & France etc, but theres plenty of crap in between
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@Duluth look, that's a good point, and from a certain perspective, it's very true.
However if you avoid judging us against lessor nations, i don't think we've produced quality 10s in the same numbers as other positions. I'm judging us against ourselves (in an effort to find our equal...
).We've been blessed with unreal starters though.
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@kiwiinmelb I think you are forgetting NIck Evans as well. Who was certainly quality and was raved about up north after this move up there.
Gopperth, Nacewa have also down well up there. And somebody else said on this forum that Bleyendaal is currently one of the best going around. I haven't mentioned Lucky Luke yet either.
So, in a nutshell, I'd say we've produced a heap of top quality 10's ... we've just struggled to keep them in New Zealand.
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@MajorRage said in Aaron Cruden:
@Duluth I think you are forgetting NIck Evans as well. Who was certainly quality and was raved about up north after this move up there.
Gopperth, Nacewa have also down well up there. And somebody else said on this forum that Bleyendaal is currently one of the best going around. I haven't mentioned Lucky Luke yet either.
So, in a nutshell, I'd say we've produced a heap of top quality 10's ... we've just struggled to keep them in New Zealand.
I don't think Duluth is saying we haven't produced quality. I certainly think we have. He was answering @kiwiinmelb post which seemed to imply that the success the ABs have had should've correlated with more world class 1st 5s
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@ACT-Crusader your right .. my comment should be to kiwi in melb ... will update accordingly. thanks
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Yeah I didnt mean our 10s have been crap ,far from it , had plenty of good ones ,
But for a team that has been so dominant , i dont remember many occasions if any in my lifetime , like the Carter era where we had the undoubted best in the world in that position playing in black
yet its such an important position , many would describe it as the most important ,
like ACT said , 15 man game ,
more often than not, strong all over the park is what counts most anyway obviously
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There was a book on AB 10s a few years ago where they actually mentioned how for a long time NZ didn't really have great 10s, like 10 wasn't a position players wanted to play and until the 80s it was actually a revolving door position. Whereas now I think it's highly valued as Kiwiinmelb has said and we've been extremely lucky in recent years (since 2011) where we've had Carter, when he was injured Cruden (who was often in better form) and then to Barrett's spectacular year in 2016.
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@Steven-Harris said in Aaron Cruden:
well the nearly man played 47 x tests for his country,47 more than Chris Rattue ever played
Let's shut the forum down then, champ, because other than Shayne Philpott popping up on here again, I think we'll be battling to find any of our posters having turned out for the ABs, yet we plonk our opinions on here.
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I recking the thing that differentiates a 10 when comparisons are made to to other positions is that he is far more visible. You can have a great hooker, lock or 8 but their core works even if stand out, is all part of the whole pack effort. Take Coles as a for instance. He's a great hooker, does his core work very well but why are people raving about him? It's mostly down to his non-core work, where he pops up in open play and pulls of something outrageous. For a 10, very thing is his core work, though (Mehrts might suggest tackling was not). 10s get judged at a different level I thin because they are always in the spotlight.
Funny though, what someone else just said that previously NZ didn't seem to produce many outstanding 10s. Prior to Fox I can't remember many names let alone stand outs. Bob Burgess was pretty good but short lived. Fucked if I can think of another though. However since Fox, you've had Bachop (OK not stand out but pretty good), Mehrts, Spencer, Carter, Evans, Cruden, Sopoaga, Barrett. There's not many of those that would be turned down by any other country. That's 30 years of conveyor belt right there.
Stop bloody moaning.
