Paul Lewis: Weight is only gain for Ross

Times have changed, haven't they? In the old days, All Black test locks tended to go on tour.

There are very few instances of All Blacks being told they had to stay behind and go to the gym instead of touring the UK after playing the first eight tests of the domestic season. But Isaac Ross is apparently doing so.

Instead of sampling the bouillabaisse on the boulevards of Marseille or the minestrone in Milan, young Isaac is said to be staying at at home, sprinkling Creatine on his Kornies, wolfing down bacon butties and heading off to the gym to doll up the delts.

I tried for a moment to imagine a young Colin Meads being told he had to stay home from a tour to bulk up, after playing the first eight tests of the year.

I couldn't get past an image of the poor All Black selector who carried this news being bent into a shape roughly resembling a paper clip and being posted into the slot in his own letterbox.

Meads wasn't big, even in his heyday. However, there were no doubts about his physical strength and an attitude to the tough stuff which could be summarised as "willing" and it's fair to say that The Tree played like a man much bigger than he was. Meads would have had no trouble with the "cleaning out" and smacking into the rucks and mauls of the modern game - apparently the area where the All Blacks selectors are unhappy and where they see Ross benefiting from a prolonged spell down the gym to put more weight on his frame.

Ian Jones would have been bemused too, no doubt, had he been told he had to stay at home in 1990 and not go to France on tour after he had locked the All Black scrum in the first five domestic tests that year.

Jones first surfaced as a skinny stripling and went away on tour in 1989, as a development player. He did rather well although he did have to contend with consistent criticism that he lacked bulk - just as Ross now is.

Officially 1.98m and 104kg, there were many prepared to bet that Jones didn't really manage to nudge the scales past 100kg at all, unless he had lead-lined shoes and paperweights in his pockets. But that didn't affect his lineout or ball skills.

The thing is, you see, they took Jones away on tour and tried him out; developed him and gave him confidence.

Ross will be highly skilled at going to the gym when the All Blacks come home and next season may well head the All Black stats at ingesting Creatine; for most yards gained when walking to the scales; and for most looks in the mirror to check the pecs.

I can see it now. Next year, when Bakkies Botha is crashing about being horrible during the Tri-Nations, Ross can tap him on the shoulder and show him his impressive weight gain charts.

Quite what is being achieved by leaving Ross at home instead of taking him on tour is beyond me. The All Blacks usually have a conditioning coach on tour. Could be a job for him, should we think?

Ross would benefit more from going on tour in the "All Black environment", being told what he has to do and then set about doing it; growing in experience, confidence, skill and - if he eats enough Cornish pasties and downs enough pints of Bishop's Finger and goes to the gym - weight.

There is no doubt that Ross needs to "harden up." Everyone has said so. This writer, many others and many astute judges of rugby.

But he is clearly a talent. He has pace, ball skills, can time a pass and even kick. He can provide the unexpected in a game dominated by defences and repetitive phases. Why risk losing all that by leaving him at home to concentrate on body shape designed to help in the (admittedly important) ball gathering and re-cycling phases?

Developing an All Black by leaving him at home instead of taking him on a tour is like asking Lance Armstrong to improve without a bike; or like asking Barack Obama to be a better President by swimming the Atlantic - he'll be fitter and bigger but not necessarily any better at his job.

Andy Haden was chosen out of the blue as a fresh-faced 22-year-old to tour Britain in 1972, but was dismissed as too young, too soft and too immature as a lock after that tour. He was sent back to provincial rugby but, after being mucked about by Auckland's selectors, headed to France on what is now a well-worn path.

If there's any doubt about the views on a young Haden at the time, he came on as a replacement in one Auckland match and was roundly booed by the crowd. He paused to give the crowd the fingers before he packed down in the scrum. In club matches, the feeling was, in spite of his size and All Black credentials, that he could be upset if you niggled him.

When he returned to New Zealand a few years later, Haden was a much more rounded and experienced player, confident and content with his ability and technique. He should have been chosen for the 1976 All Black tour of South Africa and there has always been more than a hint that he was punished for daring to leave and for being Haden, never a shrinking violet.

There is an argument that the selectors were right. Haden played his first test against the Lions in 1977 and went on to become not just a great All Black but one of the great locks ... from anywhere. But he could have played many more than his 41 test matches and Haden prospered playing more rugby, not less.

If confirmed, Ross left at home is not the first oddity; not the lone piece of mad-scientist stuff from this panel. They pulled the All Blacks out of Super 14 rugby in 2007, thereby giving them less rugby instead of more ahead of the World Cup. They rotated them like ferris wheels, removing the opportunity to develop combinations and understanding rather than increasing them. We all know what happened next.

And now, with Ross, it may be more ass-about-face time.