All Blacks: World Cup announcement shocks - will Liam Squire add to a growing legend?

Liam Squire in action for the All Blacks. Photo / Greg Bowker

In these days of extended groups and apprentice players just along for the experience, the announcement of All Blacks squads has lost a little mystique over the years. Apart from World Cup squads, that is.

Thanks to the increasingly high importance placed on the once-every-four-year jamborees by World Rugby and the competing teams and supporters, media bosses eager to cash in on the hype, and often feverish speculation on social media, they are different beasts altogether, so, at the risk of adding to the noise, prepare for a step up in intensity over the next few days before Wednesday's big reveal, and one name in particular will be intently listened for, but more on him shortly.

Steve Hansen's squad for Japan will be announced in the All Blacks' changing room at Eden Park, the inner sanctum a left turn down the corridor when entering from the field of play. There may be a surprise of some sort among the list of 31 players, because there often is.

Four years ago the All Blacks' squad for the World Cup in England and Wales was announced at the Beehive in Wellington amidst, among others, politicians eager to be associated with potential success and to bathe in the reflected glory of the successful 2011 tournament in New Zealand.

During the day there had been some speculation about comings and goings at Wellington airport but there was genuine surprise when Waisake Naholo's name was read out despite his ongoing recovery from a broken leg, aided, even more dramatically, by a traditional Fijian remedy based around the use of native plants.

Naholo had suffered the injury in his debut test two months earlier. Another inexperienced wing, Nehe Milner-Skudder, was also named in the squad.

In 2011, the television cameras focused on Chiefs loose forward Liam Messam walking through Auckland airport after he missed the squad for the tournament in New Zealand; his omission was a surprise for he was one of the form players in Super Rugby that year.

Four years later he made the World Cup squad for the United Kingdom, a comeback similar to, but probably not truly comparable with, midfielder Ma'a Nonu's after he missed the 2007 tournament in France and Wales but starred in the next two.

Which brings us to loose forward Liam Squire, a name being increasingly linked with Hansen's World Cup squad despite him not being available for any of the team's four tests this year.

Squire, 28, a big, tough, hard-hitting blindside flanker or No8, has played 23 tests but wasn't in the right frame of mind to be considered for the Rugby Championship squad.

He also missed the Highlanders' tour to South Africa this year due to what were described as personal issues.

Hansen has said as recently as the day after the All Blacks' 36-0 Bledisloe Cup drubbing of Australia that the door wasn't shut on Squire's World Cup dream, but that the player had to call him, rather than the other way around.

Squire has excelled for Tasman during the current Mitre 10 Cup competition, which is to be expected given his talent, but for him to suddenly declare himself available for a World Cup defence and a challenging eight weeks in Japan, and to be included, would have to qualify as one of the biggest ever surprises in terms of All Blacks squad announcements.

It would be a remarkable comeback and all power to him. Squire at his best would offer a consistently hard edge and a quality alternative to Ardie Savea at the side of the scrum and skipper Kieran Read at the back. The squad as a whole would improve with his inclusion, although the loose forward who misses out as a result would deserve sympathy.

Four years ago, in the weeks before the announcement of the World Cup squad for the United Kingdom, Messam was asked about his disappointment in 2011 and what he had learned from it.

"You can't really worry about selection - it's up to the coaches," Messam said.

It usually is, but in this case it truly appears to be up to Squire.