All Blacks: Selectors opt for maturity

Tom Donnelly helped change the selectors' thinking. Photo / Getty Images

Experience is the commodity for which the All Black selectors have gained the most respect in their seven years at the helm and explains, partly at least, the omission of emerging talents Victor Vito, Aaron Cruden and Rene Ranger.

It's a simplification, but the selectors, maybe even subconsciously, seem to have the mantra of 'if in doubt, go with maturity and experience.'

They have been a little dismissive of mature players in the past - preferring to take risks with more exciting but less reliable options. Tom Donnelly is the man who did most to change their thinking.

If they initially selected him last year out of desperation, seeing him as a stop-gap solution; a journeyman lock who could hold the fort until Ali Williams returned, they quickly changed their minds.

Donnelly converted all those years at the provincial and Super 14 coalface into topline test performances.

He wasn't thrown by the jump and if anything, it helped him discover new elements in his game. At 27, Donnelly showed age counted for much - making a transition a man five years younger may never have managed.

Look at the marginal calls in this current selection and experience came out on top each time. It appears as if it was one of either Liam Messam or Victor Vito who would travel as back-up No 8.

Messam has been in and around the All Black squad for three seasons, has eight years of provincial rugby and five years with the Chiefs as well as time with the national sevens squad. Vito is that little bit bigger, more powerful, faster and equally adept with the ball in hand, but has only two provincial campaigns and one year of Super rugby behind him.

Vito may also be paying for that mistake in Sydney, where he got lost on defence and let James O'Connor doddle in for the softest try.

That's the thing, Vito created doubt in the minds of the selectors, with not only that mistake, but also with a general hesitancy and uncertainty.

He carried the ball well in his cameo appearances but was chasing the game at times, not badly, but enough for the selectors to cool on him and take the view that for now, Messam is a safer bet.

It was the same with Aaron Cruden. His experience is similar to Vito's - well short of the 19 tests Stephen Donald has played.

Again, like Vito, if Cruden had nailed a big effort in Sydney, he would have been on the plane to Hong Kong. But he didn't look ready, was troubled for 60 minutes and a long way off being where he needed to be.

The selectors keep talking about his tactical appreciation. He might well have that, but his technical application of basic skills - all of his kicking in particular - wasn't test calibre. With doubts about Cruden and Donald in form and vastly more experienced, the choice became simple.

Colin Slade was an intriguing wildcard but couldn't outscore Donald on form or experience even though he probably shades him on overall ability.

If it also came down to a straight choice between Hosea Gear and Rene Ranger then the same applies again. Ranger - loose, exciting but raw - lost out to Gear, whose form has been consistently good for two years and a player less likely to make high impact mistakes.

The effect of this philosophy manifests in a stunning statistic - the 30-man squad contains more than 1000 test caps.

The All Black squad that toured Europe in November 2006, 10 months before the last World Cup was thought one of the most experienced of all time and they set off with 742 caps.

They also set off with 32, rather than 30, players which has a significance beyond making the current squad's tally of caps more impressive.

Throughout 2006 the coaches had planned to take 30 players in November but three weeks before they set off, Henry sought approval to take 32.

All sorts of reasons were put forward why the squad had to be enlarged but there were many who felt the real driver was an inability to make the hard calls.

Throughout his career Henry's critics have said he struggles to drop players and by taking 32 in 2006, the panel didn't have to break the bad news to some quality players who had been with the squad all season and longer.

We have seen in 2010 a new-found clinical approach that meant the selectors accepted there were consequences in other positions as a result of taking three hookers and three halfbacks.

With no wriggle room, hard choices had to be made and those such as Vito, Ranger and Cruden who had not quite convinced had to be left behind.

When all three were included in the All Black squad earlier this year, they injected a sense of risk and adventure.

Their respective omissions has created a new sense of conservatism - not necessarily a bad thing given that every fours years, the nation laments the All Blacks' lack of experience and ability to make good decisions under pressure.