'In the form of his life': Barnstorming Bundee's date with destiny

PARIS -- Bundee Aki is playing so well they've written a song about him. Well, kind of. But surely any link with The Cranberries' "Zombie", which is being played over the stadium PA and sung by the travelling Irish hoard in France, is a good thing, right?

Replace "Zommmmbie" with "Bundeeeee" and you've got the gist of it anyway.

Twisted lyrics aside, there is no doubt that Aki has been one of the most dominant figures at Rugby World Cup 2023. Ahead of the quarterfinals this weekend, which sees Ireland meet the All Blacks in one the most hotly anticipated matches in the tournament's history, Aki tops the tournament for total carries [61], metres carried [567], and sits equal first for defenders beaten [23]; he also sits equal second for line breaks [9].

Talk about an individual stat line, huh?

And now he has the chance to sting the nation he had to abandon to chase his Test rugby dreams. Stuck behind the likes of Ma'a Nonu and Sonny Bill Williams, Aki packed his bags for Irish club Connacht in 2014. Three years later, with his residency period served, he debuted for Ireland. And six years on he has become one of the world's most damaging ball-carriers.

"Bundee is an absolute competitor," outgoing Connacht coach Andy Friend told ESPN this week when asked what his first impressions of the hard-running centre were when the Australian joined the club in 2018. "He's got the perfect build, I think, for an international centre, a low centre of gravity, stocky, powerful, so he's got that perfect build and he's got the mentality that says he just wants to be a winner every time he takes the field.

"That was my first impression with him, I'd seen him from a distance, but then when you get to meet the bloke, you work out that that is his mentality; he's a family man but everything is also about winning and being the best that he can be. Very driven, very single-minded in the way he goes about his stuff, enormous determination and belief in his own ability and his own capacity, so they were things that first struck me."

Gone, however, are the days that international 12s can simply be crash-ball cowboys.

One of the keys to Nonu's longevity and World-Cup winning partnership with Conrad Smith was the work the inside centre put into his game midway through his career; sweeping cut-out passes, offloads through contract, footwork at the line and a kicking game were all added to the All Black's kitbag, and are now necessities of the modern-day Test 12.

Friend says Aki has undergone a similar transition during his time in Ireland.

"I think those subtleties have grown and I think that's where Ireland has been really good for him," Friend explained. "I think when he did burst onto the scene in Ireland, 2015/16 season when Connacht won the PRO12 as it was back then, Bundee was the player of the tournament. I wasn't there, but I certainly watched a lot of the games, and he was just devastating with the football; he could carry through things, defensively he was rock solid, and that was probably the style of game that you'd seen him play for the Chiefs.

"That's the base of his game, but I think what's he added since then is the subtlety around the deft passing, his kicking game, he's got a little bit of footwork at the line now; he's always had a good fend.

"But I think this biggest thing that's happened this tournament is his timing, his timing is just beautiful at the moment. His ability to not get ahead of himself, just to wait and use his acceleration and his power at the right time, to run onto a short ball, whether it be an inside ball or an outside ball, has just been exceptional. And that's a compliment to the man, he's continued, even at the age of 33, to develop his game and we're seeing that on the world stage at the minute."

That timing was on show last week in Ireland's first-half demolition of Scotland. Standing a little wider than usual, Aki took a pass 15 metres inside the left touchline, powered through the line and offloaded to midfield partner Gary Ringrose, who then fed Hugo Keenan for a clear run to the line and Ireland's second try.

Earlier in the tournament, in the blockbuster clash with South Africa, Aki topped the count for carriers and metres made, and generally created all sorts of issues for the Springboks midfield.

But the past 12 months haven't been all line breaks and tackle busts either. During the most recent season of the United Rugby Championship, Aki was suspended for eight weeks for a dangerous cleanout that made headlines across the rugby world.

Ugly? Yes. Untimely? Even more so, particularly when you are up against the quality that Ireland has across its midfield options.

"My read of it was that he was very frustrated with that, and it was a lengthy time out," Friend said of Aki's reaction to that suspension. "I think the other thing that was in the back of his mind is that he just wants to play every game; you've got a World Cup coming up and you've got a bloke called Robbie Henshaw and a bloke called Gary Ringrose, who are pretty good footballers, and another bloke called Stuart McCloskey who was also going pretty well.

"I think the frustration for Bundee was more around missing the opportunity, to be out there showing what I can do, so that was a tricky one for him. And it definitely played on his mind, but he managed to find a way to get to his own self-awareness and his own self-control around what does he need to do.

"So we sent him up to Ireland camp to spend some time up there, just to get away from Connacht, to basically train by himself, but to train in a different environment where he didn't have the in-your-face of not playing every week. He went away and did that; and again, the extras that Bundee does behind the scenes, he is so driven and so singled-minded and focused on wanting to get his best version out there, that while he wasn't playing he was still trying to make every post a winner."

Almost 12 months on from that cleanout on the Stormers' Seabelo Senatla, to which an agitated Aki remonstrated with the referee following his red card, the 33-year-old is poised to play the biggest game of his career.

As fate would have it, the All Blacks will be standing across the other side of the Stade de France turf on Saturday night, and Aki up against the talented Jordie Barrett.

If Aki had stayed on in New Zealand, he may well have gone on to push his Test claims and one day don the famous black jersey. But there's no doubting how at home he looks in green, setting up one helluva matchup with Barrett this weekend.

"Two very different footballers, I think," Friend said when asked to evaluate that matchup. "Bundee in the form of his life, I actually really enjoyed the way Ireland played Bundee in that Scotland match. They didn't hit him, he kept running those holes and the defenders had to sit down on him because he's been playing so well.