Finlay Christie in action against England. Might that series have been his last in the black jersey? Photo / Photosport
Finlay Christie in action against England. Might that series have been his last in the black jersey? Photo / Photosport
THREE KEY FACTS
Scott Robertson revealed his 36-man squad for the All Blacks’ Rugby Championship campaign
Halfback Noah Hotham has been moved into the main group after initially missing out at the start of the 2024 season
Finlay Christie has been dropped, despite his standing as an experienced player
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
OPINION
If the All Blacks’ first squad of 2024 came with an unexpected conservative bent andstrong link to the past, the second selection has equally surprised with a heavy emphasis on the future and definitive signs that head coach Scott Robertson is going to make bold decisions quickly and decisively to move players on.
Since coming into the job, Robertson has talked about the need to be conscious of form and has shown, by retaining Noah Hotham at the expense of the more established Finlay Christie, that this isn’t just empty rhetoric.
Christie, who was a regular pick in the previous regime, didn’t so much play his way out of the Rugby Championship squad as Hotham played his way in.
Hotham, who was called in after the first test against England as injury cover for TJ Perenara, made a sparkling debut in San Diego in which he signalled he has both the mental and physical capacity to thrive in test rugby.
It was obviously enough, combined with two relatively so-so performances from Christie in which he never quite ignited the All Blacks attack or played with the sort of free-flowing dynamism a continuity game plan needs, to convince Robertson to make what is a significant change to the halfback pecking order.
Coming into the first test of the year, it was apparent that Perenara ranked one, Christie two and Cortez Ratima three.
Now, the evidence would suggest that Hotham has leapt to number three, Christie is demoted to four and possibly what may be confirmed when the team to play Argentina is picked, is that Ratima is now number one and Perenara two.
And given the clinical way Christie was released after not quite delivering, there will be some interest seeing what happens when Cam Roigard returns from injury later this year.
Noah Hotham made his debut off the bench against Fiji. Photo / Photosport
That’s when we may see yet more bold selecting from Robertson and his crew, as it may be that it is the veteran Perenara who has to make way for Roigard.
There’s no doubt that Robertson was nervous heading into his first tests in charge and waned to start his regime with the experience of Perenara at halfback.
It was a safety-first and understandable choice to rely on the competitive nature of Perenara, his confidence to boss those around him and his ability to guide the relatively inexperienced Damian McKenzie at first five-eighths.
The fact that Christie, the next most experienced halfback, was on the bench, confirmed that Robertson wanted to take a low-risk approach at halfback.
But as the series against England and one-off test against Fiji played out, it became apparent that Ratima has the most suitable skillset to play the style of rugby the All Blacks want.
Perenara is a phenomenal competitor, but at the highest level his decision-making has long carried an element of hesitancy, and in a world where defences barely afford their opposition a split second to react as it is, a bit of shuffling and pondering from a halfback can be disastrous.
Ratima, despite only making his debut off the bench at Eden Park in test two, was quicker to the breakdown than both Perenara and Christie, didn’t deliberate with his decision-making and enabled the All Blacks attack to flow a fraction quicker and take some of the sting out of the opposition’s defensive rush.
His passing was sharp too and his support lines were almost always perfect.
Now that Hotham has also shown he has a skillset that ties in nicely with the higher-tempo rugby that the All Blacks would like to play, it’s possible that Robertson and his fellow coaches may have developed enough confidence in their cohort of halfbacks to favour youth over experience.
Ratima and Roigard are both 23 and Hotham is just 21 and if the selectors believe, which they most likely do, that these are the three halfbacks they will be taking to the 2027 World Cup, then there seems little point or value in not committing to that quickly.
Perenara will have an important role to play in the short term – mentoring and developing both Ratima and Hotham, while also either starting or coming off the bench in the coming Rugby Championship encounters.
Once Roigard is match-fit, though, the question will become whether the All Blacks still need the veteran Perenara in their mix?
There is value in retaining older players in specialist positions – with Dane Coles having played a mentoring role for a young generation of hookers throughout the last World Cup cycle.
But Coles was only able to play that role in developing Codie Taylor and Samisoni Taukei’aho because he was deemed to still be worthy of selection in his own right and among the three best hookers in the country.
By the end of the Rugby Championship, or certainly by the end of this year, the conservatism which marked Robertson’s first selection will be a distant memory.
