All Blacks: Packed with intrigue

The question marks that surround the All Blacks squad heading north save the tour from being a yawner. Photo / Greg Bowker

Time was when All Black tours of the Northern Hemisphere were events to be savoured.

Remember those lengthy expeditions, mid-week games, squads of only 30, and once television tuned in, special middle-of-the-night occasions with cocoa, slippers and, if they'd behaved themselves, the kids?

In more recent times, a ho-hum feel has attached itself to some of these post-Tri-Nations treks, especially when increasingly bulging squads have checked on to the flight to Europe.

However - and even though it is the fag-end of the international season, from a purely New Zealand perspective - when the latest All Black group fly out to Japan early tomorrow, there will be enough points of interest hovering over them on the forthcoming six-match tour to load it with intrigue.

In part, that goes back to an ordinary home and Tri-Nations campaign, during which four tests out of nine were lost, and with that the attendant line of thought that perhaps more grim days lie ahead over the coming weeks.

And in part, it is the inclusion of four new players - wings Ben Smith and Zac Guildford, midfield back Tamati Ellison and first five-eighth Mike Delany - and the interest which invariably focuses on fresh faces in black.

Will they get a decent opportunity? How will they measure up? Have they got what it takes for - and whisper this because it's been the end-game in all the All Black selectors strategic thinking and planning since the cockup of 2007 - 2011?

Layered over all that is the selectors' manoeuvring into different roles.

Head man Graham Henry is taking over the forwards, Steve Hansen has shifted from that role to handling the attack, while Wayne Smith, the backs planner, is now working on the defensive structure.

Of the three, Smith's job might be the easiest. He will work from a solid base put in place by Henry, and which conceded just 10 tries in nine tests this year. Tweaking, and introducing ideas to add-on, rather than replacing, seems his task.

"It's all quite similar," loose forward Jerome Kaino said after this week's three-day camp in Auckland. "There's some little techniques in the tackle ... he's been teaching new things for the guys to try out on the field."

Top of the ladder, so to speak, will be Henry's work with the lineout. Because it has been a set piece varying from tidy to a dog's breakfast at various points in the last year, it has attracted a degree of morbid fascination, along the lines of "how much worse can it get".

Henry brought out some scaffolding this week, with lineout forwards standing on top, arms raised as a target for the throwers.

Gnarled old warriors will have slowly shaken their heads at that. It is certainly different. Whether it makes a difference against big, athletic men like Simon Shaw of England, or Alun Wyn Jones of Wales, or new Wallaby captain Rocky Elsom, time will tell.

The integration of the new men - how it's done and to what degree - is expected to be in small increments. However taking Guildford, in particular, and not giving him an opportunity in one of the tests in Europe would seem a waste.

Rodney So'oialo is the chief piece of evidence for another element into the mix for the tour. He has been a cornerstone for the All Black pack for several years, but this season looked weary.

Kieran Read shot past him as preferred No 8, is much younger and has the legs to be round for the World Cup, provided he continues to put a strong case.

So'oialo needs to show he can be there, and making an impact, in two years. Otherwise, this could be his final lap.

Lock Brad Thorn is the crunching heart of the tight forwards, but he's 34. Of more relevance, he'll be 36 at the World Cup. Hooker Andrew Hore is 31. Points need to be made by these men with the future in mind.

And then there are the personal battles, Kaino against Adam Thomson for the No 6; Owen Franks against Neemia Tialata for the tighthead prop's job; Jimmy Cowan squaring off against Brendon Leonard at halfback. More than enough to give pause for plenty of thought.

SCHEDULE

All Blacks' end of year tour to Japan, Wales, Italy, England and France

* AUSTRALIA at Tokyo, Japan, 9.30pm, October 31
* WALES at Cardiff, 6.15am, November 8
* ITALY at Milan, 3am, November 15
* ENGLAND at London, 3.30am, November 22
* FRANCE at Marseille, 8.45am, November 29
* BARBARIANS at London, 3.30am, December 6