All Blacks: Latimer's time in the spotlight

Tanerau Latimer receives a pass from captain Mils Muliaina during a training session at Rugby League Park in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

He has swapped his No 19 jersey for the No 7 black uniform. It seems much better. Tanerau Latimer feels like a real All Black.

Well almost. He will tomorrow night at 7.30 when he runs out at the CakeTin for his first start in the famous black jersey with the team and the nation demanding retribution for the disaster at Carisbrook.

Latimer came on for the injured Adam Thomson in the last quarter in Dunedin as the All Blacks drew level with France before that fightback faded.

With regular skipper Richie McCaw still on the injured list and Thomson gone for six weeks with a broken hand, Latimer now has the start most felt he earned with an industrious Super 14.

It is a chance for the 23-year-old to put his credentials on the table, to tell the selectors he is a better investment than Thomson, or the recovering Scott Waldrom, as the backup to the injured skipper.

It is early days for Latimer but he would also suggest he is more than an apprentice, that he is the next-best opensider and a player to be persevered with towards the 2011 World Cup.

Of course others such as Thomson, Waldrom and new reserve George Whitelock will want their piece of the action too, as there are no guarantees about who will survive the attrition and selection vagaries until the World Cup.

"Last week opened my eyes to what test rugby is all about," Latimer said yesterday. "The intensity is a lot higher, the speed of everything goes like that," he said, clicking his fingers.

"I was nervous as heck," he confessed.

Latimer still has his No 19 jersey in the bottom of his suitcase and will give that and his No 7 kit to his fiancee to return home for safekeeping. There was no way he was going to swap either with his French opponents.

"It will be a very special jersey and the man who wears it at the moment, Richie [McCaw] he is a special player and a special person who I look up to and admire."