He can kick, pass, attack and even defend with the best of them but Lima Sopoaga has used his 2015 Super Rugby campaign to firmly place himself amongst the favourites to don the All Blacks jersey during the Rugby Championship and perhaps even the Rugby World Cup.
Although cramp forced Sopoaga off in the 70th minute of their historic 21-14 win against the Hurricanes over the weekend in the 2015 Super Rugby final, his contribution in the form of two penalties and the conversion of Elliot Dixon’s try could not go unnoticed.
However, his performance during this game was merely the cherry on top for Sopoaga and the best possible season he could have asked for.
Sopoaga stormed to the top of the points list, contributing a massive 191 points, in the form of tries, penalties and many conversions, to his team throughout the tournament, showing he was able to convert his kicking more often than not, something his fellow New Zealand flyhalfs struggled with throughout the season. Consistency was a key factor to the success of Sopoaga this year.
It’s become clear that he has become a pivotal playmaker within the Highlanders squad and their overall success in the Super Rugby campaign only reiterates this. While he may have only two tries to his name in 17 appearances this season, he also played a hand assisting a massive 10 tries for his team, the most by any player.
What can only be a natural continuation of this would be a selection into the All Blacks squad, something he has been able to check off after being named in the wider training squad for the national team.
What I believe will push selection into his favour compared to players like Beauden Barrett, Dan Carter or Colin Slade, is his overall value towards a squad. While Barrett has been notorious as a commander of his backline and a constant threat during play, both with handling the ball and cheeky chip kicks, his goal kicking has been a worrying point for some time now, only made worse by his long injury absence for most of the latter half of the season.
Carter and Slade have both performed well with the boot and converted the points when their team needed those most, although they weren’t presented with the opportunity all that frequently. Carter, however, seems hesitant to really get involve with the constant threat of injuries lingering over him while Slade will be heading overseas, a fact that can rule him out simply because he will not be part of the “future plan”.
Sopoaga currently is able to be a destructive threat during play and make the necessary tackles when it is asked for him to do so (albeit not too often as his natural game sees him less engaged in defensive play compared to Barrett), but quite frankly currently possess the golden boot in New Zealand rugby as a whole in terms of reliability and conversion success. Certainly the man you would want to see step up to the tee for those match winning two or three points.
Finishing a dismal 14th last year naturally caused the Highlanders as a squad to toughen up and take a proper look at where they were heading. Finishing 6th in the combined log and emerging as eventual victors shows the growth and commitment of the unit as a whole, a performance that deserves to be rewarded to the highest honour, with the legendary Black jersey.
“Main Photo:”
