With Richie Mo’unga ineligible for national selection thanks to his lucrative Japanese contract, McKenzie has been Robertson’s go-to at No. 10 all season. That’s understandable. On ability, no player in New Zealand gets close to McKenzie at his best.
Beauden Barrett is 33, and therefore a risk to build a team around heading to the 2027 World Cup, even if he’s being shoe-horned into fullback in the short term.
Like McKenzie before him, Stephen Perofeta’s versatility between 10 and 15 will seemingly prevent him from having a stranglehold of either jersey.
And while form for the Blues has earned Harry Plummer his first test cap, it would take considerable improvement to see him become a test-quality first five-eighths over the next few years.
Until New Zealand Rugby’s board choose to alter their selection policy, McKenzie has to be the man. But despite excellence for the Chiefs, we’re yet to see McKenzie in full flight for the All Blacks.
If we’re to look closer at this, the “why” will be the question that stands out the most. However, it’s not “why” that needs answering, it’s “when”.
At its simplest, McKenzie doesn’t need order. McKenzie needs chaos.
If you think back to McKenzie’s best performances, be it with the All Blacks, Māori All Blacks, Chiefs or even Waikato, they’ve all come at times when he’s been allowed to thrive in broken play.
The less structure in place, the more McKenzie is able to act on instinct, rather than defer to patterns of order that keep him chained when he needs to break free.
Looking back on Saturday’s win, McKenzie was instrumental in what could have been the try of the season to Cortez Ratima, only for the play to be called back for a forward pass in the build-up.
Mistake aside, it showed the kind of situation that McKenzie is best able to exploit, half chances against tiring defences.
With ball in hand, McKenzie needs to be given the freedom to back his running game and take teams apart. Presently, it feels like his first option has to be setting up teammates, akin to the responsibilities of the No. 10 role.
Perhaps this is why his initial successes at the highest level came at fullback, where the freedom from creative responsibility played to his natural strengths.
Does this mean McKenzie’s future with the All Blacks needs to be at No. 15? Perhaps.
Does he be need to be used in a 2015 Sonny Bill Williams-esque specialist role off the bench? Potentially.
Is it worth sticking with McKenzie as a centre-piece of the All Blacks building towards the next World Cup? Absolutely.
For so long, the All Blacks were seen as rugby’s best side on the counter-attack, with players adept at waiting for opponents to make mistakes and over-commit, and then pouncing.
Robertson’s All Blacks are different, though. So far, against equal opposition, they’ve looked to be the team in control, and assert themselves from the word go.
That’s not saying the likes of Sir Graham Henry, Sir Steve Hansen and Ian Foster’s sides didn’t do that.
However, they were comfortable enough to switch as and when they needed to; to be able to weather any storm then throw the kitchen sink at an opponent once momentum started to shift.
Hence why Hansen and Foster looked to use McKenzie off the bench, and introduce him against tiring sides when they were prone to making mistakes against an All Blacks side whose grip on games would tighten in the dying stages.
The more a team began to tire, the greater impact McKenzie could have thanks to his live-wire running game, and ability to find space for both himself and his teammates.
Think back to last year’s World Cup final loss to South Africa. The All Blacks’ greatest threat in the dying minutes was McKenzie, off the bench, and looking to run at a Springboks side hanging on to their one-point advantage.
But Robertson’s All Blacks don’t follow those same patterns.
For seven successive seasons, Robertson’s Crusaders conquered all before them in Super Rugby, with Richie Mo’unga driving the side year in, year out.
That system was built largely on structure, and knowing their processes would allow them to control games from the outset, with a test-quality forward pack in front of a world-class first five-eighths orchestrating a power-filled backline.
That largely appears to be the way his All Blacks have attempted to play so far, as if they were the Crusaders in black shirts with McKenzie asked to cosplay as Richie Mo’unga.
Robertson’s personality may make it seem otherwise, given his free-spirited nature that for so long was considered to be the reason he wasn’t fit to be the All Blacks’ head coach.
But make no mistake, the systems in place at the Crusaders were largely built on repetition, and on doing small things so well they became big things. Order.
That’s not the player McKenzie is, nor is it the player the All Blacks should try to turn him into.
Until Robertson is able to give McKenzie chaos, we won’t see him thrive among order.
