Chris Rattue: Henry depth charge explodes over No 13

There are two selection matters of high importance to the nation and in the past weeks they have developed links and remarkably similar traits.

A panel of judges, contestants practising hard all week before a quick twirl in new routines, the steady fall of the axe, shiny suits, make-up, music, Murray Mexted, and an audience clapping on cue while smiling like they are auditioning to be Phil Mickelson's wife.

A smile? Perhaps it is a forced grimace of confusion for many when it comes to the All Black selections, although in the case of Dancing With The Stars, everyone seems genuinely happy.

As yet, we haven't seen Jason Gunn grinning in the All Black selectors' box, but given the new penchant for turning rugby tests into pop concerts, that wouldn't be a total surprise either.

It has been show time like never before with the All Blacks, and you can't but feel that Graham Henry, Steve Hansen, Wayne Smith and Sir Brian Lochore are having a wee bit of fun right now, before they return to the real job of being selectors and coaches. Let's hope so.

To slightly twist what an Australian cricket selector famously said - and when it comes to this area of expertise you can't go past an Aussie cricket selector - if you relied on numbers then you wouldn't need selectors.

A large percentage of the nation could have come up with the same 39 names as Henry and his mates did for these three tests, and shuffled them into the same three teams.

It's a random-play policy that might even have merit in areas where players need rest to time their run to next year's World Cup, and to get "depth" in the professional ranks to use a word that is glued to Henry's lips.

Depth, depth, depth. There's so much of it now that it is going to be awfully embarrassing if the All Blacks sink in the stuff come next year. Hey look, we flopped at the World Cup. But na-na-na-na-na-na, we've got seven props, eight locks, loosies for Africa and more wings than the Air Force.

A note of caution, though. You are, at last glance, still only allowed 15 players on the field at any one time, and 22 in the match-day squad. And as England showed around Australia in 2003, well-honed combinations who've hunkered down in the trenches time and time again count for an awful lot.

If ever there is a position in which the All Blacks selectors needed to pick their mark, to be selectors, it is at centre.

Three years on from 13 proving to be our unlucky World Cup number, the great monolith that is Rugby Corp - which runs franchises the length of the country while closing down local operators of independent thought - still hasn't turned up a test centre. You could even argue that Conrad Smith has hopped to the head of the queue by breaking his leg.

There are a few theories on this, and here are two.

First, the testing of Ma'a Nonu, Casey Laulala and Isaia Toeava is a time-buying show trial where they get just enough time to hang themselves, that the not-guilty verdict on Mils Muliaina and Smith is a gimme.

Second, it is a duel between flawed characters who have been given dodgy pistols and are being asked to take 10 paces in a fog.

Whatever, it is almost impossible to see how the cause of fixing the great problem for New Zealand rugby has been advanced, or will be solved when Toeava lines up outside Slammin' Sam Tuitupou in Argentina.

Yes, there is probably room to add Clarke Dermody to the props who can poke their chests out at scrums for the rest of their careers, knowing that a silver fern once resided there.

Yes, if you must, there is time to let Greg Rawlinson romp around in an All Black jersey, to give Marty Holah false hope, to anoint David Hill even though his test career will last about as long as a Beatrice Faumuina dance routine.

And when it comes to the wings, it hardly matters. There are four outstanding applicants to be clipped on as form and circumstance dictates.

Centre though is where the selectors needed to earn their corn, to pick the man for the spot. It's a position of extraordinary demands, certainly according to the remarkable standards Tana Umaga set, and playing musical chairs is not a test centre going to make.

Maybe the aura of Umaga, his proximity to perfection, is the problem in the search for a successor.

Let's face it. We won't have another Umaga on French fields, but then again, we could have someone with greater talents in certain areas.

The case of Nonu is maybe the most interesting. Why is it that a player with so much power and talent, a rare excitement machine in an age of the mechanical, is having so much trouble finding favour with public?

There is, I suspect, a cockiness to Nonu that doesn't sit well with our cocksure yet stifling rugby codes of practice. His personality is seen as the root of his rugby problems. Nonu has taken a tumble from being lauded for the X-factor to being crossed out and the selection panel seems none-too-convinced either.

It could be down to the age of pinpoint television analysis, maybe the importance of the No 13 jersey, but Nonu is getting none of the tolerance afforded to our great wings Jonah Lomu and Bryan Williams.

Yet Nonu shows remarkable power with the ball in an era that does not afford players the time and space which allowed Lomu and Williams to flourish to the point of masking their weaknesses at times.

With Muliaina and Smith as go-to guys, this was the perfect time to promote the marvellous talent of Nonu to the hilt, not confuse him. At the very least, it would help set him in place as the ultimate bench warrior, a dead-set super sub which just might be his true calling.

There is an extraordinary rush to find Nonu's faults whereas this is, surely, a prime case where the coaches should be working overtime to turn problems into strengths. What a player we would then have. But we won't, not while Nonu is stuck in a talent quest or has to live off late-match appearances.

In Hamilton, Nonu was parked in a backline run by Luke McAlister, he of the shark-fin haircut with an interesting act. McAlister can pull the odd rabbit out of a hat, for sure. But you wouldn't let him near the knives, blindfold and girl on the spinning wheel. Precise he is not.

Nonu also got his latest chance in the notoriously unpredictable first All Black test of the year. He was in a scratch team with a cockeyed loose forward unit of low linebreaking capabilities which was bolstered after 44 minutes by Jerome Kaino, whose career has been hanging in a sling.

It was left to the Wellington midfield man to provide much of the punch, which he did with plenty of success to these eyes against the robust Irish. It is of major frustration that he wasn't allowed to build on that the following week.

Yet after this All Black forward pack was dealt to by Irish muscle and resolve at rucks and mauls in Hamilton, much post-match focus honed in on Nonu's weak points.

Surely the argument here is that the way to get Nonu's fantastic potential into test match line is to play him again and again, starting with opponents like Ireland and/or Argentina, and hopefully in something that resembles Dan Carter's All Blacks.

It's very unlikely that barring the Mini-Me Umaga option of Muliaina, that test completeness lies somewhere in the individual ability of Nonu, Laulala and Toeava. You can't stuff all three of them in a No 13 jersey and bundle them off to France either.

It's especially hard to see how Hurricanes fullback Toeava, who is as green as an organic bean, can be turned into a World Cup test centre or reliable utility by next year.

So, in these quarters, Nonu is the answer, as imperfect as he may seem to some right now.

The real answer, though, is this. It is up to the selectors to sort this out, and they should have sorted it out by now. It will be of enormous satisfaction to all of us if we've got three world-class locks sitting on the couch cheering as the All Blacks steamroll over an opponent in Paris next year, but it would be of even greater satisfaction if we turned up with centres properly grounded at test level.

The time has come to stop chancing with potential stars.