Richard Loe: Ali needs to do more for place

Ali Williams doesn't deserve an All Blacks spot yet. Photo / Getty Images

You couldn't say Ali Williams deserves his place back in the All Blacks yet.

I'm not going to criticise him or praise him too much - I thought he played okay, but that's about it. It was a bit of a 50/50 performance. He did well in the lineouts, pushed in the scrums, tackled well but that was about it.

He isn't showing yet the general play that made him such a good player in the past. It's not easy coming back from two years out of the game - and I know he's said he's going to be concentrating on his core roles.

Fair enough, but then he would say that to manage expectations, wouldn't he? He's going to need a bit more to edge out his rivals for the All Blacks - and one of them was playing alongside him.

Anthony Boric had a better all-round game and was one of the few, along with Keven Mealamu, who really contested at the breakdown. That was the key phase in the Reds-Blues clash on Friday night.

There's more than one team taking notes from Jamie Joseph's approach with the Highlanders and the way they are attacking the breakdown in numbers. If you go into the breakdown with fewer numbers, you are going to come second - and the Blues did.

They must have been shocked to find themselves 24-0 down and there were a couple of soft tries before they sorted themselves out.

Again the Reds played really well early on and they really kept possession well. They also have some gifted players and when such players are on form - like Digby Ioane and Quade Cooper - they are really on form.

You'd have to say, too, that the Blues would have been praised to the high heavens had this been the old Super 12 or even the Super 14. They would have scored enough points on the table to have got where they wanted to go by now.

But this is a longer, tougher competition and they had won seven in a row before now - and you can forgive them a hiccup against a top side.

Having said that, they are going to have to re-group against the Stormers and then come back off the bye against the Chiefs, who will give them a good old hard go.

They'll need to steady the ship then - as will Williams. I said a few weeks ago, when picking my All Black side at that time, that he would have to start shining soon.

He's not doing badly, but he's not shining yet either.