All Blacks: Fresh faces mask heaps of experience

The All Blacks during training at Toyota Park in Illinois. Photo / Getty Images, Graphic/ NZ Herald

Selectors take opportunity to experiment with new-look starting XV for USA game

Fresh legs and fresh faces are everywhere in the team to play the USA but the troops at Soldier Field have been charged with delivering an old-school All Black performance.

The selectors have picked what would have to be considered a young and experimental XV that is as much about preparing the All Blacks for the coming years as it is about defeating the USA on Sunday.

First test starts have been handed to Nathan Harris, Patrick Tuipulotu and TJ Perenara while Charlie Faumuina, Sam Cane, Victor Vito, Sonny Bill Williams and Charles Piutau are in the starting XV for the first time in 2014.

Daniel Carter has been named on the bench and is expected to feature: for how long will depend on the team's performance, but ideally he'll be given at least 20 minutes, if not longer.

Kieran Read captains the team in the absence of the resting Richie McCaw and it's easy enough to wind the clock forward to 2016 and see the guts of this team being first-choice All Blacks.

"We have got to grow our team and this is a great opportunity to give some people some game time and give some other people a bit of a breather because it has been a busy schedule," said All Black coach Steve Hansen.

"It wasn't that hard to select and there is an expectation that this group goes out to play and gives a high-class performance.

"That is what we are preparing to do."

Hansen, who always has an intuitively good feel for how his players are travelling mentally and physically, is genuinely confident that energy levels are higher than they have been at the corresponding time in previous years.

The excitement of being in the USA has invigorated the squad, while he also suspects that the players are now more used to the ordeals with which they are presented in the back half of the season.

There is now a level of familiarity with the routine of playing in Argentina, South Africa and Australia ahead of the northern tour.

Some of the enthusiasm is also being injected by the fact there are so many players named to take on the USA who have had limited opportunity this season.

Physically, there is no reason to believe the run-on team should have any concerns about fatigue. The likes of Faumuina, Harris, Tuipulotu, Cane, Vito, Perenara, Crotty and Piutau have not played much in the past eight weeks. They bring fresh legs, while they also know they have to capitalise on the chance they have been given with an accurate and cohesive performance.

When a similarly young and experimental All Black side played against Japan last year, they failed to get much going. Hansen is hopeful this year will be different because the side, while it may not initially appear so, does in fact have a depth of experience.

"Charlie Faumuina in the front row has been around for a wee while now," says Hansen. "He hasn't started a lot of test matches but he has been in the environment for a while.

"Jeremy Thrush is a fairly experienced rugby player and he has been in and out of the environment for the last couple of years.

"Victor is an experienced player, Kieran Read is obviously world class and Sam Cane is in the leadership group. Aaron Cruden is in the leadership group.

"Sonny is coming back but he's been a professional rugby/league player for years and CJ [Cory Jane] has a lot of experience. So there is a lot more experience than we probably think when we first look at it.

"They might be young, but there is a lot of experience and over the years we have brought these guys along to the point where we have complete trust in them."