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// NZ RUGBY WORLD // JUNE/JULY 2015
when several teams have been run off
their feet by the pace at which the All
Blacks have played.
One man who has especially relished
the arrival of Smith in test football is his
long-term friend and fellow Manawatu
stalwart, Cruden.
“The speed of ball we have been able to
create with the little man getting to the
rucks so quickly it allows the backs to
really see the opportunities that are in
front,” he said before the pair were last in
action together at Twickenham last year.
“As a first-five, when your halfback is
there nice and quick and the ball
placement from the forwards is really fast,
it allows you to see the pictures in front of
you more clearly to execute what you need
to. In the last few years we have been able
to create a lot of space and opportunities
through that speed of ball.”
Many teams with access to a halfback
such as Aaron Smith would be tempted to
select a direct, hard-running centre to try
to use his strength and power to exploit
the extra space created by the speed of
delivery.
Not the All Blacks. In Conrad Smith
they have a space creator rather than an
out and out space exploiter.
Decision-making is a key part of the
centre’s role and no one in world rugby
does it better than Smith. The quality of
his distribution is excellent – both in
terms of accuracy and timing.
He knows when to give and when to
hold; he knows when to bring the attack
back to the traffic and he has an innate
sense of timing. Each test he finds himself
confronted by a bigger, more physical man
than he and each test he dominates his
opponent with his guile, sleight of hand,
angles of attack and deception.
How many big centres have eyed up
Smith and thought they were in for an
easy time only to find him an impossibly
diverse and subtle adversary with too
many tricks up his sleeve? How many
times has Smith read the situation before
anyone else and made something happen
on the strength of his anticipation?
Just last year he won the test at Eden
You wouldn’t say Conrad was flashy but he is one
of the best centres in the world and what makes
him that is that he does everything right when you
need him to do it.’ steve hAnsen
[ the smiths ]
