Hoskins Sotutu of North catches his breath during the North v South rugby match at Sky Stadium on September 05, 2020 in Wellington. Photo / Getty Images.
Hoskins Sotutu of North catches his breath during the North v South rugby match at Sky Stadium on September 05, 2020 in Wellington. Photo / Getty Images.
Hopefully the All Blacks will indeed find some opposition to play this year and unleash their new found abrasive edge which is the defining element of the first squad picked by the new coaching team.
The All Blacks of 2020 have the look of a side that has decided thatwhatever else happens this year, they won't tolerate being beaten up. Not by Australia, South Africa or Argentina. Not by anyone.
It will be one thing to lose, but another again if they do so because they didn't bring enough muscle, aggression and desire to the contest.
Ian Foster has picked a squad with such a heavy emphasis on size and physicality that it suggests he is going to rebuild the national team on the basis that the forwards must win the collisions and the backs avoid them.
The piano movers have been brought in en masse to allow the piano players to be able to better do their jobs.
It's a somewhat simple analysis of the 35-man squad that's been picked, but it also just about sums it up entirely.
Foster's predecessor, Steve Hansen, delivered a phenomenal run of success, but at some hard to identify point in his tenure – probably mid-way through 2018 – the All Blacks' forwards became hard to predict.
Sometimes they were on deck, scrubbed and ready for action, other times they were loose, a touch reticent and lacking the dynamism and crunch required to dominate their opposition.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in the World Cup semi-final and Foster has decided to run his campaign on the physicality ticket.
In every tight call, he's gone with the bigger athlete and the loose forwards have a marauding, intimidating feel to them which suggests that they will be tasked with making ownership of the gainline their top priority.
Assistant coach John Plumtree said as much when he said that the coaching panel had identified a need to find players who can generate momentum by nothing more elaborate than ploughing their way through the tackle.
It's a somewhat base demand, but valid nevertheless as test rugby, as much as it breaks the hearts of the romantics, is essentially a contest of muscularity first, creativity and imagination second.
Holes don't just appear in this age of rush defence and microscopic analysis and the sad truth is that the likes of Ireland, South Africa, England and Wales have been able to create world class rugby teams in the gym.
New Zealanders may not like the way test matches have been hijacked by the unimaginative. They may not like that resilience can often be the only quality required to win a game, but Foster doesn't want to be self-righteously preaching about the demise of running rugby as coach of the world's fifth best team.
He wants the All Blacks restored to the top of the order and to do that, there has to be an acceptance that he needs forwards capable and willing to graft and scrap on the gainline before they entertain any notion of showing what else they have got.
That's why he's found room for Akira Ioane, who finally proved in Super Rugby Aotearoa that he's willing to spend the 80 minutes at the coalface and tackle with his shoulders.
Akira Ioane of the Blues in action during the round 6 Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Hurricanes and the Blues. Photo / Getty Images.
That's why he's found room for Cullen Grace, the young Crusader who was fearless and dominant in the early rounds.
There's more to Grace than brutality but it's his trump card at the moment and if a blindside flanker can damage the biggest men in the Southern Hemisphere when he's barely 20 and in his first Super Rugby campaign, then he's absolutely a player worth investing in.
Quinten Strange has won his call-up on much the same ticket. He barely featured this year because of injury but he was posting an impressive body of work in previous years.
There are bigger options at lock than Strange, but none have really shown the same willingness to impose themselves.
He was barely out of his teens when he debuted for the Crusaders and had the bravery, or temerity, to tangle with Jerome Kaino off the ball.
Cullen Grace of the Crusaders makes a break during the round six Super Rugby match between the Crusaders and the Reds. Photo / Getty Images.
That sort of mindset is exactly what Foster is after and it's why Shannon Frizell, Dalton Papalii and Hoskins Sotutu have made the cut ahead of the likes of Tom Christie, Tom Sanders, Lachlan Boshier and Dillon Hunt.
Those who have been picked can do much more than slug it out and own collisions, but it's the fact that they can do the former so well which has earned them their selections.
Foster's All Blacks will be bringing plenty of lunch money to the test arena and they really don't want England, South Africa and Ireland to rob them of it with old-fashioned bullying tactics.
The All Blacks will of course occasionally be beaten under Foster, but he's gone all out to ensure they won't ever be beaten up.
