All Blacks: Tight times ahead

The All Blacks have struggled to replace Carl Hayman (left) at tighthead. Photo / Getty Images

All Black props often used to come in dynasties.

There were long-term partnerships which anchored the scrum; brotherhoods in the dark arts of the front row; experience which paved the road for the All Black machine, as it used to be called.

Think Gary Knight and John Ashworth; World Cup winners Steve McDowell and John Drake; McDowell and Richard Loe; Olo Brown and Craig Dowd; Carl Hoeft and Kees Meeuws; Carl Hayman and Tony Woodcock; Greg Somerville and Woodcock.

Of course, in between all these partnerships have been props who didn't last quite as long, who didn't build quite such a legacy.

Coaches love a settled and capable front row. It is the cement they put in the mixer; the piles that anchor their house.

It is no coincidence that the All Blacks' best periods, best strings of results, have generally come when a strong front row has been in the vanguard of New Zealand's rugby efforts.

Which is not to say that a good front row is all that is required but it does beg the question: Why have the All Blacks under Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen, struggled to find a settled and powerful combination lately?

After all, they have had enough of a look. In the five years since Henry has been at the helm, the All Blacks have used 14 props.

That in itself is not such a shocking number. In the same period, for example, the All Blacks have used 19 locks and 17 flankers.

But it's when you get down to specifics that you see the difficulty. If you divide the players used into those who are still in the national frame and those who have been discarded and/or gone overseas, the picture is clearer.

There are seven flankers from that 19 who have gone on their OE and/or been discarded; of the locks, another seven have been discarded or headed elsewhere. Out of the props, eight have gone.

When you drill down further, to tight-head prop, the picture becomes a little more alarming.

There are few options available at present, which is why new boy Owen Franks might turn out to be a highly important player in New Zealand rugby in the next two years.

But, outside Franks, the two options at tighthead prop appear to be Neemia Tialata – who has played 35 tests before last night without ever really dominating the position or class opposition – and John Afoa, who has played 16 tests without ever really breaking into the first rank (the front row, as it were) of Henry's All Blacks.

In addition, for most part, the All Blacks' propping partnerships down the years have materialised quickly; when one unit was finished, another would either appear or one part of that partnership would prosper with a new player slotting into the vacant spot.

Think McDowell and Drake becoming McDowell and Loe or Brown and Dowd stepping into their shoes reasonably quickly afterwards.

So why is New Zealand rugby, the finders of some fine front rowers over the years, so short now and why did the discards not measure up in the eyes of the selectors?

THERE ARE several reasons, the most obvious being the defections. Carl Hayman (45 tests) and Greg Somerville (66) would still walk into an All Black test front row but are playing overseas.

Somerville, now 31, took a while to establish himself in the top order of international props but that job was made harder by the fact that he could play both sides of the scrum and was often asked to. It was after Hayman left that he truly established himself as a tighthead at international level.

It is no secret that the All Blacks selectors would love to have Hayman, who is still only 29, back for the World Cup in 2011and that outcome seems highly likely.

So depth is one reason and prop (and tighthead, in particular) another position where New Zealand is not as strong as it used to be.

Former All Black front rower and Herald on Sunday columnist Richard Loe has been an outspoken critic of Tialata's, going on record as saying he does not believe the big Wellington prop should be a first choice All Black – and that he would play Afoa ahead of Tialata.

Loe was mostly complimentary about Owen Franks' debut against Italy and, especially, when subbed on against the Wallabies last weekend.

Only 21, Franks performed particularly strongly round the field at a time of intense pressure in the match showing aggression, urgency and mobility which Loe liked – although he is not totally convinced yet about Franks' propping ability at test level.

Former All Black assistant coach and selector Peter Thorburn had fewer doubts.

"He [Franks] played really well when he came on. He scrummed well, I thought, and he showed some real fire. That little altercation in the second half when there were handbags drawn, he got involved and there was a real glint in the eye.

"I am not condoning that sort of stuff but what it showed me was that here was a guy who really wanted to take his chance and who has got some of the tools to do it.

"They [All Blacks selectors] are very thorough and careful and they have a whole list of criteria they will be ticking off – and for Franks to jump over the top of other players to South Africa, they will have seen something in him that interest them greatly, I can assure you."

But haven't we been through this before? Haven't we been excited previously by the unveiling of a new All Black prop, only to see the newcomer quietly set adrift down No Confidence Creek?

THE PROPS used by Henry and co since 2004 are as follows and they can be divided roughly in the national eye and those who have headed overseas. In the latter camp are the following:

• Saimone Taumoepeau (3 tests)
• Campbell Johnstone (3 tests)
• Clarke Dermody (3 tests)
• John Schwalger (2 tests)
• Ben Franks (1 match, v Munster)
• Hayman (45 tests)
• Somerville (66 tests)
• Meeuws (42 tests)

Still in the All Black frame are Woodcock (53 tests), Tialata (35), Afoa (16), Jame Mackintosh (1), Owen Franks (2) and Wyatt Crockett (1).

Now let's divide them into specialist roles. Of the discards or travellers, Hayman, Somerville, Meeuws Ben Franks, Schwalger and Johnstone were all tightheads.

Of the survivors, Tialata, Afoa and Owen Franks are tightheads. So there's an obvious disparity in numbers and experience on the 'tightie' side of the scrum nowadays.

So what happened? Why were Johnstone, Schwalger and Ben Franks not persevered with?

Of all of them, Johnstone is probably the most perplexing. He was described as having "the best right shoulder in the game" by assistant coach Hansen when he first came on the scene.

It was a ringing endorsement and it was till ringing a month after his All Black debut (in June 2005) when Johnstone played his last game as an All Black against the Lions in Auckland in July 2005.

There were whispers that Johnstone's around-the-field work wasn't up to it but that has never been confirmed at All Black level.

Neither have murmurings that Tialata has suffered from recurrent knee and possibly neck injuries.

Ben Franks was taken on the tour of Europe last year where he played one match – in the almost-lost game against an energised Munster, where he was replaced Afoa.

"How can anyone decide what Ben Franks was about on the strength of one game?" asks Loe.

"It's like Wyatt Crockett – he's been put out as dog tucker on the strength of one half against Italy."

Crockett, however, will almost certainly come again. Like Mackintosh (who had a poor Super 14 and who was a long way off All Black selection this year), he is long in the back but a mobile prop with good ball skills.

That's what New Zealand coaches generally like their props to be; good at their core job but also with the facility for getting around the track and contributing in the loose and at the breakdown.

What was wrong with the discarded tightheads is harder to discern.

Rugby convention has it that you don't accompany a departing player with a public critique of what went wrong, although Liam Messam might disagree.

Let's face it, the coaches aren't running an HR consultancy and preserving the security of the game's inner sanctum is also important.

But if you don't communicate what happened with the props, the coaches have to take the criticism that they are rather desperately burning through the thinning prop stocks.

Thorburn disagrees: "What most people don't understand is the way these guys [the current All Black panel] work. They take these guys [new All Blacks] away on tour and blood them in home tests matches to see what they are like. They have a whole raft of criteria they look for in a player – on the fields, off the field, who they players work with the team dynamic, how they react under pressure, work ethic, social skills, leadership, scrummaging, mobility, ball skills. . . all sort of things."

He says props take a long to mature and is not worried Tialata hasn't yet dominated after 35 tests.

Thorburn also says scrum guru Mike Cron will have input into selection; so will hookers Keven Mealamu, Andrew Hore and probably Woodcock.

LOE HAS a different perspective, He feels the tendency to use and discard props has taken root as the modern game has evolved into bigger squads where coaches have taken four props on tour to cover their bets.

"I think that has encouraged an environment where coaches chop and change too much at prop," he says.

"Props need time to develop and they need game time and team time – not just put on for half a game and then taken off. How is anyone going to learn anything from that? There have been too many examples of that happening where prospects don't even get 80 minutes, so they are just dibbling at it."

One of those examples, when rotation was at its ugly height in 2006, when Dermody and Afoa (two of five props selected) played just 14 minutes in the four games on the end-of-season All Black tour.

Loe says the All Black scrum was not totally convincing against the Wallabies and agreed with the assessment that Australian prop Al Baxter – often seen doing his normal dive into the turn last Saturday – might have been refereed more on his reputation than performance; that the All Blacks might have benefited from a less-than-knowledgeable referee at scrum time.

He feels sorry for Johnstone and also for Schwalger – whom he says had a convincing Super 14 this year and stood out, for him, more than Tialata.

He also likes Schwalger because he has "a bit of needle in him" and says the selectors could do worse (and have…).

Loe also mentions Cron, the well-regarded scrum coach for the All Blacks: "You can't take it away from Mike Cron – he has done a lot of good work at different levels with different teams and has got results. But if we are going to have a full-time scrum coach and we are going to go through this many props, someone has to ask the question: whose balls-up is it"

"If a player has been discarded, is it because he wasn't up to it, was it poor selection and why didn't the scrum doctoring work?

"They are working with professional athletes – all of whom will have been dead keen to prolong their career at the top and the do the business. So what went wrong?"

It's a good question and there seems to be only two answers to the whole dilemma – get Hayman back and hope Owen Franks develops.