All Blacks v England: Succession plan for Sam Cane is a fallacy in 2024 – Tight Five

THREE KEY FACTS

• The All Blacks face England at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham at 4.10am Sunday NZT.
• It will be the first time the two sides have met at the ground since 2018.
• Sam Cane will likely start at openside flanker, despite not being eligible for the All Blacks in 2025.

Elliott Smith is Newstalk ZB and Gold Sport’s lead rugby commentator and reporter. He’s been a sports journalist since 2010 and has travelled to three Rugby World Cups.

OPINION

A question ... How often do we hear about succession planning in sports? Knowing that when one player leaves you’ve got the next man up to step in. It works in club land. But in international rugby, the idea is a fallacy, of sorts. Not always. But enough that it renders itself relatively meaningless a lot of the time. Depth building in squads is often mistaken for succession planning. One is useful and serves a purpose, the other is being a prisoner of the moment you’re in – under the fake guise of looking to the future.

An explanation ... Sam Cane, barring a big surprise from Scott Robertson overnight, will start at openside flanker against England on Sunday morning and he will probably do it again the following week in Dublin too and maybe Paris. He won’t be in New Zealand next year and therefore not eligible. Some have suggested moving on – and the argument has weakened with the triple injuries to the loose forward stocks – by looking towards someone who’ll be there in 2025. But if he remains the best in his position in the country – and for me, he is – then he should start and 2025 will take care of itself when you get there. You can’t win tests in 2025 now, but you can lose 2024 matches.

Case in point – Wallace Sititi and the role he’s effectively taken in replacing Shannon Frizell, despite only debuting in Super Rugby Pacific this year.

A prediction ... The All Blacks may not have the results they wanted over the past couple of years, but the interest level in Japan and England is unabated - 61,000 tickets sold in Yokohama, another sell-out this week at Twickenham. Add in media sessions last week where your correspondent was the only New Zealand/English speaking journalist asking questions of the All Blacks among 20 Japanese journalists (a number that swelled to triple figures by match day) and it says something about the pull the side maintains and why NZR is so keen to make bank on black via its NZRC arm. Also says something about the New Zealand media industry too, sadly.

An observation ... The least interesting story of the week by some distance has to be the Joe Marler “bin the haka” story. Marler has forged a reputation of being a sort of lower-rent Tyson Fury (if that is even possible), although he does have an ability to be remarkably charming in real life – some of his media conferences at the 2019 World Cup were genuinely insightful to sit in on. Marler knew exactly what he was doing when he sent the tweet and it got the reaction he wanted. Does he want to bin the haka? Who knows or cares.

A suggestion ... Next time, let’s all just agree to ignore the haka comments. It was clear engagement bait. As was pointed out to me by my colleague Jamie Wall of RNZ, it’s right up there with the “All Blacks can’t name their English opposites” (that was also been done this week) or “the All Blacks have lost their aura”. Let’s see if we can get all three by kick-off time on Sunday morning.

All Blacks v England, Sunday 4.10am. Live commentary on Newstalk ZB, Gold Sport and iHeartRadio. Live match blog at nzherald.co.nz