KEY POINTS:
It turns out that better people don't necessarily make better All Blacks. Better rugby players make better All Blacks, which is why the national team have revamped their leadership model in the wake of World Cup defeat.
From August 2004, the All Blacks under Graham Henry adopted the
mantra 'better people make better All Blacks', believing that if players were encouraged to become self-reliant and more independent off the field, it would transfer to their on-field work.
Following consecutive defeats in Australia and South Africa in 2004, the All Black management felt players were guilty of making poor decisions under pressure and the only remedy was to grow leaders. A leadership group of 10 was given responsibility to set standards in such areas as how the team should treat commercial responsibilities, dress codes and booze intake. They were charged with becoming better leaders and creating a less dictatorial environment.
But defeat in Cardiff last year showed that, despite the best efforts to improve the quality and quantity of leaders, poor decisions were still made under pressure - a point made at some length by the independent World Cup Review.
That has led to a rethink and now five senior players - Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ali Williams, Rodney So'oialo and Mils Muliaina - have been given leadership roles in shaping the gameplan. These players have also been asked to contribute at training, have their say and ensure others buy into the strategy.
All Black manager Darren Shand: "We have structured it so we have a group who really have a focus on field around strategy and gameplan and a smaller group [Greg Somerville, Keven Mealamu and Conrad Smith] work with me in managing the environment and the culture.
"It gives those guys responsibility to try to grow the new guys. They are driving the training right now, giving feedback and input into strategy.
"On reflection, we put a lot of energy into developing the person with the view that there would be a natural transference because you were increasing the confidence, you were helping them work with others and those were things that we felt during a game would be important.
"Now we have to look a lot harder at how we can make that a lot more game-related. We have got to see how we can put them into real game-related situations through the training.
"Rightly or wrongly, we put the emphasis on developing self-reliance, tried to take guys who were dependent and to make them independent."
Shand says there has been another change to the leadership dynamic since the World Cup, caused mainly by the exodus of senior players such as Anton Oliver, Carl Hayman, Chris Jack, Jerry Collins, Byron Kelleher, Doug Howlett and Aaron Mauger.
Management are now more prominent and involved in driving standards and protocol.
"In every campaign I have ever been involved in, you always look at where you are going to put the line in the sand," says Shand.
"Because of time, we have to be quite dictatorial. We only had six days together [before the Ireland test] so there were certain things we had to say 'this is what we are going to do' and just get on with it.
"We have got a new and a younger group. We had four years with quite a number of guys who are still here and still believe in that system. If you look at the World Cup campaign, we still did a lot of things right so we have to retain some of that.
"But at this early stage it has been a lot more management driven, still with interaction with the key players."
The on-field leadership group was chosen by the coaches based on the players who they felt were likely to be selected most tests, had ample experience and who they felt were ready to lead by example.
McCaw and So'oialo are the only two players with significant captaincy experience, although Muliaina took over at the Chiefs midway through this season when Jono Gibbes was injured.
Naturally quiet and shy, Muliaina says he spent his first year in the All Blacks [2003] keeping his head down and focusing on nothing more than retaining his place.
Gradually he has become more comfortable with his senior pro status and is now ready to take on the challenge of being an All Black leader.
"I never saw myself in that role at all before," he said. "But it has come with maturity. I guess with age you start to see things a bit differently and I look at some players now and see a little bit of myself in them.
"We have been asked to give the coaches some feedback during training and to help the younger players."
