Kieran Read of New Zealand leads the Haka prior to kickoff during the international match between Ireland and New Zealand at Soldier Field on November 5, 2016. Photo / Getty Images.
Kieran Read of New Zealand leads the Haka prior to kickoff during the international match between Ireland and New Zealand at Soldier Field on November 5, 2016. Photo / Getty Images.
If there is one fad made popular in recent times that has screamed bad idea, it is the use of co-captains by international sides.
The All Blacks, thankfully, have never bought into it. They have never liked the idea of their captain operating on a job share basis.
For them,the criteria has been relatively simple when it comes to choosing a captain: in addition to having the requisite experience and leadership qualities, they have to be the best player in their position and worthy of selection; they have to be able to play 80 minutes and ideally they will be held in respect by the rest of the international community.
The ability to be able to play 80 minutes is vital, because the All Blacks, despite being the first team to create a more collaborative leadership model, still believe they need to have one ultimately controlling voice that starts and finishes each test.
For more than the last decade now, the All Blacks have built a leadership teams around their captain.
More players have been brought into the inner circle to offer some insight be it tactical input, technical advice or simply because they have been around for an age and have probably accumulated some knowledge worth sharing.
But the captain has always been, undeniably and unambiguously, the chief figure-head. No one has misunderstood that the final say sits with the captain, that the decision ultimately falls on his shoulders to be made.
Autumn International, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy 24/11/2018. New Zealand's Kieran Read speaks to the team after the game. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Almost conversely, more leaders have been made and yet the power and authority of the captain has only increased in the last decade.
Richie McCaw's stature both within the team and in wider rugby circles grew enormously the longer he stayed in the job.
There were leaders across the group in his tenure, but it was his team. It was his calm that the players needed to see in the final minutes of a big game.
It was his instinctive ability to make the right decision that settled things; his presence on the field that provided those around him with confidence and certainty.
It's much the same with Kieran Read. He has become that same talismanic figure. He, like McCaw, has welcomed the wider input of his fellow senior players but made sure that his authority remains undiminished as a result.
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw during the All Blacks v France pool A match of the 2011 IRB Rugby World Cup at Eden Park, Auckland. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
He guides this All Blacks team with much the same presence of mind and singular focus and hence has become an inspiring and trusted captain to whom others respond.
And because of the importance the All Blacks continue to place on their captain, they believe that player has to be on the field for 80 minutes.
Its common sense really. They can't build this commanding presence within the team and then not have him on the field for the final quarter.
That seems like madness both in practical terms to be without that decision-making and experience when it is needed most and in a psychological sense it looks weak and uncertain – as if the man in charge isn't fit enough or good enough to go the distance.
The All Blacks have never gone down the job-share road and yet so many other teams have and continue to do so almost oblivious that it appears to be a significant problem.
Australia, for instance, were in the fight of their lives to win the 2015 World Cup when, after 50 minutes All Blacks fullback Ben Smith was yellow-carded.
They hit back with two quick tries and then took off their captain, Stephen Moore. Smith came back on and the All Blacks knew the Wallabies were vulnerable without their captain and promptly squeezed them out of the game.
The veteran Moore couldn't go more than 60 minutes in a test and in his last year at the helm, he was barely making it to half-time.
When England came off the rails in the 2018 Six Nations, losing to Scotland, Ireland and France they were emulating the Australians by having the veteran Dylan Hartley as their captain.
Like Moore, he couldn't go the distance so mid-way through tests, Owen Farrell would assume the captaincy and clearly, given their results, it didn't work.
Strangely, though, despite the obvious flaws in picking a captain who can't go the distance, plenty of teams will turn up in Japan with this plan in mind.
Argentina, who still rely so heavily on the charismatic Agustin Creevy to guide them around the field, know that their veteran captain can't play 80 minutes.
Ireland are in much the same boat with Rory Best as are Scotland with Grieg Laidlaw.
Maybe one of these teams with co-captains will win the World Cup and prove the notion has merit.
But one man, one job feels like the best way to go.
