Chances are that you do not remember a lot about New Zealand’s routine 85-8 win over Romania in the pool stages of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Well, unless you are Marius Tincu, because it is not every day a Romanian player scores a try against the All Blacks. Given the two sides have only ever played each other twice in an official Test match, Tincu is the only Romanian player to hold that accolade, which must surely earn you a free beer now and again.
Tincu aside, that day in Toulouse was memorable for another reason. With less than a couple of minutes to go the All Blacks launched a set-piece move off a scrum, a switch-pass from Nick Evans to Conrad Smith opening up the defence before the ball found its way to Doug Howlett for his 49th and ultimately final Test try.
Howlett, an outstanding winger who went on to become a cult hero with Munster, has been at the top of the New Zealand try-scoring charts now for almost two decades. Except now his record is under threat from Will Jordan and Beauden Barrett, both tied on 45 tries.
When you starting recalling how many outstanding backs New Zealand have produced over the past 25 years, and how no other team in the world has played more alluring attacking rugby for such a sustained period of time, the fact that Howlett’s record has stood for so long and that no All Black has yet cracked the 50-try barrier in Test rugby seems extraordinary.
Howlett during that 2007 tournament took the record away from the lightning-fast Christian Cullen, who scored 46 tries and would have to be in the conversation for the greatest full-back of all time.
Two wingers, Joe Rokocoko and Julian Savea, matched Cullen’s total. They started so explosively you’d have put your house on them soaring past Howlett’s record. Until they both fizzled out.
Fiji-born Rokocoko was so smooth gliding past defenders, electric to watch. He finished 2003, his first year in Test rugby, with 17 tries in 12 Tests. By the age of 27 he had played his final game, dropped after an error-filled performance against England at Twickenham.
As for Savea, they do not just hand out nicknames like ‘The Bus’. A hat-trick on debut against Ireland set the tone, but it was another treble, in the 2015 quarter-final obliteration of France, which made Savea seem unstoppable.
At one point his New Zealand head coach, Steve Hansen, went as far as to suggest that Savea was “probably better” than Jonah Lomu. There is arguably no higher praise for an All Black wing. Yet by 2017, Savea’s form had dipped and his place in the squad was gone, dropped on his 27th birthday. The same age as Rokocoko.
‘I don’t know how my record’s stood for so long. These two are getting up there now’
Doug Howlett
Savea was never recalled, finishing with 46 tries in 54 Tests, at a blistering rate of 0.85 tries per game. “When he was at his best, he was nigh-on unstoppable,” Hansen later said ahead of Savea’s departure from New Zealand to join Toulon. The production line of talented wings is so prolific in New Zealand that there is always another candidate ready to step in. Sitiveni Sivivatu (29 tries in 46 Tests), Waisake Naholo and Nehe Milner-Skudder all spring to mind. Still, the fact that no one has eclipsed Howlett’s record yet comes as a surprise. Including to Howlett himself.
“I don’t know how it’s stood for so long,” Howlett tells The Observer. “I guess there has been a higher turnover of players and to get a record like this, you’re going to have to have time in the jersey and play a few games. The two lads, Beauden and Will, Beauden in particular has had more than his fair share with 140-odd games. It’s about right that he’s getting up there!”
“By the time they are getting into the high 40s [for tries], they are established All Blacks and opportunities arise as well as players get older, the opportunity to travel. The opportunity to do that while I was still playing good rugby, that was always on the cards for me. We don’t know when that time is. After the [2007] World Cup was a natural fit for me and typically players look at those cycles.”
No disrespect to Barrett, but as Howlett suggests, his tries have come at a slightly slower rate – 0.31 – than the scorching pace Jordan has set, matching Savea in fact on 0.85. Jordan, however, is an very different player to Savea, patiently waiting for his opportunities before scything defences apart. Such has been Jordan’s prowess that when he recently went four games without scoring it was jokingly referred to as a drought. Against Scotland, order was restored. Try number 44 in 52 Tests.
“He is a pleasure to watch. I love what he does off the ball more than what he does on it,” Howlett explains. “We all see what he does on the ball, but it’s how he positions himself to receive the pass back, or the last pass for a try, is what I like seeing.
“He’s always in the game. He is not sitting on the end of the line, it’s drifting around the rucks and behind Beauden looking for little inside balls or offloads through tackles – he busts games open.”
Had it not been for a tap tackle by Freddie Steward, then Jordan may have been in early against England, bursting onto the ball with so much acceleration that his run bent England’s defence all out of shape in the run-up to Codie Taylor’s try.
You can never really keep Jordan quiet for too long, however. There he was on Damian McKenzie’s shoulder for Test try number 45, hauling the All Blacks into a contest when you wondered if they were about to slip away entirely.
Wales, in the midst of a major defensive rebuild, face him next week. You can see why they might be worried. Howlett too.
Photograph by Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images