Ian Foster has several potential heroes who could save the day, and his All Blacks job, this weekend. Photo / Photosport
Ian Foster has several potential heroes who could save the day, and his All Blacks job, this weekend. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
By Gregor Paul in South Africa
The Hollywood moment has arrived for this All Blacks team and their coaching group. They are standing on the brink, one game left to maybe, and only maybe, save the coach from the axe and the back office from a brutal clean-out.
Theremay be a few senior players in the same boat – knowing that if there is regime change after the Ellis Park test, they may be swept out by the new broom.
And so, with the stakes as high as high as they are and the pressure to deliver as intense as it is, the great unknown is how coach Ian Foster will handle his selections this week.
He said on Sunday that some freshening up of the team was likely given the uncertainty of the health status of the Barrett brothers, Jordie and Beauden, and the abject failure of the All Blacks' attack.
The problem with simply tweaking the team when they have lost three of their last four and five of their last six tests, is that it feels like a classic case of madly believing that if they keep doing the same thing, they will soon get a different result.
Foster may well be committed to his belief that something special is brewing, and that his team are on the verge of somehow finding the glue to piece themselves back together, but it's that same sort of unfounded conviction that leads gamblers to keep believing they are going to make their money back on the next race.
This is the Hollywood moment, so there needs to be more than a little tweaking and tinkering. There has to be some high-risk, potentially high-reward selections that acknowledge that the team isn't going to magically fix itself by turning up with largely the same personnel in the same positions trying to execute the same gameplan.
A serious overhaul of personnel would fit the Hollywood need for drama – a coach in desperate need of a new narrative uses his last chance for salvation to boldly pick a team that no one thought he would.
There's a risk that Foster's employer would see a selection overhaul as desperate, rather than innovative, and wonder why he hadn't settled on such a team before things got so bad.
But it would seem he has more chance of keeping his job by being radical than he does conservative and that opens for debate just what sort of options he could legitimately consider to radically reshape his team and give South Africa some unexpected problems.
His leeway in the forwards is certainly limited, but the shock and awe option would be to start with a front-row of Ethan de Groot, Samisoni Taukei'aho and Fletcher Newell.
Throwing Newell an Ellis Park debut at tight-head would be fantastically bold, but there's a few good judges who reckon, even though he hasn't played a test and is only 22, he's the best tight-head the All Blacks have in South Africa.
Injecting Tupou Vaa'i at lock, to switch Scott Barrett to blindside would be a means to put yet more lineout pressure on the Boks and give the All Blacks bigger bodies at the breakdown to shift the lumps of granite they will encounter.
He's fronted the media for the All Blacks this past, tumultuous month, but could Richie Mo'unga front the backline this weekend? Photo / Photosport
The backline has greater scope to be redrawn, mixed up and thrown together in a Hail Mary formation.
Clearly, the various combinations tried to date haven't delivered and the first change Foster could make would be at No 10, where he could start Richie Mo'unga.
That would be a selection not borne of dissatisfaction with Beauden Barrett, but as a strategic ploy to reposition the oldest Barrett brother at fullback where his aerial work can be utilised.
The All Blacks have struggled to deal with the high ball against Ireland and South Africa – two of the best aerial teams in the world – but Barrett is probably the best exponent New Zealand has.
Shifting Beauden to fullback opens the way – if he's fit – to finally play Jordie at No 12 and give the All Blacks the defensive presence they need to stop Springbok second-five Damian De Allende so readily getting over the gainline, as he did in Mbombela.
Will Jordan, if he's recovered from a stomach bug, and Caleb Clarke have to stay on the wings and that leaves one last decision.
Could Leicester Fainga'anuku be Ian Foster's trump card? Photo / Photosport
The absolute wild card selection would be to drop Rieko Ioane to the bench and pick Leicester Fainga'anuku at centre.
Fainga'anuku had a difficult night when he played on the wing against Ireland in Dunedin, but he seems a resilient character and at 110kg the All Blacks would have a battering ram in their midfield – which may not be overly creative but it might pave the way for the back three to run off his shoulder and pick off the off-loads he so often throws after he's taken the contact.
