KEY POINTS:
I found it frustrating to see the changes in the All Black team for last night's test match.
What amazes me is that we have been trying, for some time now, to build a centre combination and, now that we have Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith benefiting from each other, we go and break it up.
It's like we haven't learnt the lessons of the past. I have gone on record many times stating my opposition to reconditioning and rotation and the overuse of same.
I know Graham Henry and co will argue that I am bleating about a lack of depth in New Zealand rugby on the one hand but criticising them when they try to build that depth. My answer to that is simple - the All Blacks are not the place to create depth. That's what the Super 14 or the Maori All Blacks or the Junior All Blacks are for; so professional selectors can analyse players and decide whether they can step up.
You play your best side week after week - obviously taking into account player welfare issues where appropriate - and build those combinations and cement those players' ability to deal with the white-hot intensity of test-match rugby. Test rugby week in, week out, develops their decision-making and match-winning abilities and means they know what to do when the acid is on - not look like possums in the headlights, as happened in Cardiff last year.
It frustrates me that we are further devaluing the All Black jersey by continuing down this path. Surely the All Black coach has to be directed by the New Zealand Rugby Union on what direction the All Blacks are taking and how we get there. New Zealand rugby also has to decide where it is going on some pretty big issues, like player retention.
The NZRU seem too reactive; too slow out of the blocks. Fair enough, they have safeguarded Dan Carter and Richie McCaw and good on them. They are also apparently trying to negotiate similar things with a wider core group of senior All Blacks. Good. But we shouldn't have lost Carl Hayman. Or Luke McAlister.
The majority of New Zealand players I speak to in Britain and Europe would all rather be playing in New Zealand. It's not life in the goldfish bowl or pressure of expectations or lifestyle or all that stuff we read about whenever a player decides to shift north. It's the money. If we could offer New Zealand players close to the same money, more would stay. Easier said than done, I know, and maybe what they have achieved with McCaw and Carter is the way to go - although I still worry about such deals creating a "haves" and "have nots" section in the dressing room.
So we have weakened depth and yet we still rotate our players in test matches - at the risk of further eroding support for and interest in the game. We should be choosing our best players consistently and changes like Rudi Wulf for Antony Tuitavake frustrate me.
What do we take from this? Wulf had a good Super 14 but is he now deemed prepared for test rugby? Tuitavake is out after two test matches. What does that mean? Is he now regarded as being ready for Tri Nations rugby? With the best will in the world, the jury is out on Tuitavake and whether he has what it takes - but we are never going to find out by dropping him and replacing him with Wulf after two test matches.
Play our best side and persist with it; build those combinations and understanding and the ability to win tight test matches.
Forget the World Cup. We just need to be the best rugby team in the world - and we are - and do that by consistently fielding the best players and letting the depth develop itself. I don't hold with all that business about All Blacks feeling the pressure. If they feel the pressure, you probably don't want them as All Blacks.
Tana Umaga always used to say - and I always felt the same way - that he liked the expectations of the public on the All Blacks because it helped them to win. Absolutely right.
That's the attitude and it is fostered by playing in a settled team where players know strengths, weaknesses and combinations.
But, these days, it feels like there is a bit of an attitude change - where players are a bit more precious - and that is not helped by chopping and changing a side for experimental or player welfare reasons.
