All Blacks: All is happier now in the house of Elliot

Liam Messam goes through his paces in Edinburgh ahead of the dash with Scotland. Photo / Getty Images

Liam Messam and Hika Elliot can both thank New Zealand Maori for making this All Blacks team, though they're coming at it from completely different angles.

Discipline is the key word in both cases, or lack thereof: Messam's problems were onfield, Elliot's were off it.

The Maori centenary series, where the Messam-captained side won internationals against England and Ireland, showed the All Blacks selectors the loosie had the ability to think outside the square but play within it. Yet Elliot was nowhere to be seen."I went away from the Maori team naming pretty disappointed and I thought to myself, 'What can I do about it?' I decided the only fix was to let my actions do the talking."

The rumour mill went into overdrive when Elliot was overlooked for Corey Flynn and Dane Coles. Hooker was not exactly a position where the Maori were flush with international talent. Having made the All Blacks, albeit briefly, in 2008, Elliot assumed he was qualified. The selectors did not think so.

A more mature Elliot concedes he had been his own worst enemy and is big enough to admit off-field issues were proving an impediment.

"People around me were saying I could be a better player, but I wasn't honest enough with myself to take that kind of information on board.

"I've had some issues, I've dealt with those and I think it's made me a better person. It's built my character. I think it's where I get my consistency from now, because I've built a backbone."

Elliot turned to his dad, Lawrence, after the Maori rejection. With six sisters and a brother, there is not much room for egos in the Elliot household. "My old man, he's the most humble person I know," Elliot says. "He's one of those people who brings you back down to Earth if you're away with the fairies. For a young guy, it's quite easy to get caught up in the hype of professional rugby.

"I lost sight of my goals for a little while there."

In a strange way, Hawkes Bay's struggles helped solidify the thinking that Elliot was not just a player on the move again, but a man on the improve. As the losses mounted up, Elliot was hurting but he knew he had to be a leader.

"I tried to take it on my own shoulders to turn the team around. It's the place where I grew up, it's the team I have a passion for, it's a place I have a passion for, so to see the team struggling was disheartening.

"I had to take on a lot more responsibility on and off the field. There was a lot of young guys, I think we had something like 12 debutants in the team this year."

At the same time Elliot, a martial arts expert, was finding more balance in his life, some of rugby's most contentious laws were being re-interpreted. The faster, more open game suits him, and the same could be said for the man starting on the blindside of the scrum tomorrow.

"It's good because you don't get these big, tall locks trying to play No6 any more," Messam jokes. His versatility is a bonus for the selectors - he covers all three back row positions - but utility value wasn't what first attracted Graham Henry to Messam.

"He's a talented player who we'd be very keen to see play superbly at this level," Henry said.

That talent came with a caveat, however. "He tried to play a bit outside the square, which I enjoy, but probably too much. That led to mistakes and at this level you can't afford to do that."

Messam learned that the hard way when he scored a try at No8 in a losing effort against France last year, then had the sobering experience of being dropped with some fairly explicit explanations as to why.

"That's what I needed to hear and needed to learn," Messam said. "The disappointments I went through made me a stronger player and realise that the simple, basic things win you matches."

Messam insists he is not about to become a generic back-rower. He retains the licence to have a dart.

"I still have the opportunity to express my skills and the things that got me here in the first place."

Messam found the biggest difference between Super rugby and test rugby is the reduced time for decision making. That will be the toughest adjustment Elliot will have to face when and if he takes the field (with an appeal pending overnight, there was still a chance Mealamu might start).

While Warren Gatland and Norm Hewitt had to develop the patience of Job as they sat waiting behind Sean Fitzpatrick for opportunities that never came, Elliot, who creates and cuts his own distinctive hair-dos, is fit to burst after four tests riding the pine.

"You just want to get on and play rugby and, to not get on after four tests, you start to think."