Form goes out window

Form is no longer the be all in the naming of our national rugby sides. That message was made crystal clear by both the All Blacks and national divisional squad selectors over the weekend.
No way in the wide world could you say the AB's side for their so-called Grand Slam tour wholly and solely contains the most in-form players in their respective positions. And the same goes for the divisional squad which will undertake a brief tour of Fiji, starting this coming Saturday.
The ABs selectors have trotted out the same old excuse for ignoring the form book with some of their choices. They say everything is being pointed towards the 2007 World Cup and, not surprisingly, they are getting little argument from the bulk of AB fans. After all we haven't won that particular trophy since 1987, the year of its inauguration.
Which for a nation which prides itself at being at the very top of the rugby tree isn't exactly playing ball, is it?
Call me old-fashioned if you like but, personally, it still irks me that players can be selected to wear the ABs jersey without having first done the hard yards to deserve it.
For us media folk its great copy when a player like Auckland's utility back Isaia Toeava comes out of practically nowhere into our national line-up. It gives us the opportunity to come with headlines like "Isaia Who" and to wax lyrical about how a youngster like him is amazed at his promotion after not even making the Auckland squad of 22 for their NPC final against Otago.
Well, promising as he undoubtedly is it rankles with me that Toeava has been given the nod over other utility-type players who have gone out there week after week at Super 12 and NPC level, players like Otago's Evans ,Mapasua and Brew , Auckland's Atiga and Canterbury's Hamilton and Ralph to just to name a few. They had the form on the board but it counted for nothing in the final analysis.
But don't think Toeava is the only lucky one, how on earth did incumbent Marty Holah lose out to Chris Masoe as the understudy to the incomparable Ritchie McCaw for the openside flanker's berth.
Masoe is a punishing runner in the Jerry Collins mould but openside flankers have to be all hustle and bustle with speed to the breakdown an obvious priority. Masoe better than Holah in that area ? absolutely positively no way. Nor, for that matter, than Ben Herring who could be on the way out of the Hurricanes now that Masoe is transferring to Wellington next season or, even more so, that tough-as-teak southern man Josh Blackie of Otago.
Wairarapa-Bush rugby fans have as much reason as any to be up in arms at the composition of the divisional squad.
As reigning third division champions you might have expected at least one of our players to be part of their touring party. But, as it happens, no players from a third division union have been chosen in a side which is meant to be representative of the best players in the NPC second and third division competitions. Now I will accept that the second division unions were always going to dominate in the selection process but to say that the eight third division unions didn't deserve any recognition whatsoever in the selection process is a sham.
I mean just taking Wairarapa-Bush as an example you could easily identify six or seven players who would be capable of performing with the very best in second division play?.players like Viguurs, Simanu, Couch, Iro, Kedarabuka, Foreman and Higgison. Sure, some of those may have been ruled out through residential qualifications?Kedrabauka,Viguurs and Simanu being the obvious examples there- but that still left a fair number of serious contenders, didn't it?
Again for me it's a clear case of form not being the main criteria and again it irks me?. big time!