All Blacks coach Ian Foster reacts to Steve Hansen's switch to the NRL
OPINON:
It usually takes an All Blacks coach at least a season, if not longer, to be accused of a selection blind spot where the public make a rejected favourite a cause celebre.
Ian Foster has managed to break all sorts of records by finding himself, just two tests intohis tenure, with a groundswell of support pushing for Lachlan Boshier to be included in the All Blacks.
The Chiefs and Taranaki openside has won about a million turnovers this season and scurried around looking every inch the archetypal, ball-winning number seven.
His is a timeless art, a classy, black dress of a skill set that will never go out of fashion and be right for just about every occasion. Except the biggest occasions according to Foster - as he's not convinced Boshier can play test football.
Lachlan Boshier during Super Rugby Aotearoa. Photo / Photosport
He's placed Boshier about fifth on his list, behind Sam Cane, Ardie Savea, Dalton Papalii and Du'Plessis Kirifi.
And so we have a classic stand-off between what the public sees and what the coach wants. Boshier delivers in the arenas in which he has asked and so the public logic extends to believing he should be promoted to the All Blacks.
But Foster, as is his right, has determined that what Boshier offers may well work fantastically well at Mitre 10 Cup and Super Rugby, but wouldn't go so well in test rugby where the athletes are that bit bigger, faster and more powerful.
It's his argument to make and one that he's capable of supporting as he's seen how Cane and Savea both had to transform themselves physically after first winning test caps so they had the strength to stay on their feet when men often in excess of 130kg were barrelling into them as they foraged for the ball.
He wants his seven to be a ball carrier and destructive tackler and in both of those aspects, he believes there are better options than Boshier.
Papalii and Kirifi may not have caught the eye in the same way as Boshier has this year, but what they lack in flair and timing, they make up for in muscularity.
Pragmatic selections don't often win widespread public support but so often in test football, the industrious choice is the way to go. Teams don't often lose when they run on the ticket of hard work and explosive power in the collisions.
Foster has come into the job on a mandate of restoring the physical prowess of the All Blacks in the core areas of the field that demand it and hence he's been unable to find room for Boshier whose game, he has decided, is missing that decisive edge of carnage that he is looking for.
All Blacks head coach Ian Foster. Photo / Photosport
He's hardly in unprecedented territory here as an All Blacks coach at odds with the public over a specific player.
Graham Henry spent most of 2008 under siege to pick Hosea Gear on the wing. He picked others such as Rudi Wulf, Anthony Tuitavake and Richard Kahui on the wing, but not Gear, who was in supreme form.
It reached the stage that Henry went to watch a New Zealand Māori game and the whole crowd chanted Gear's name at him, at which point, even the coach's wife said it was time to change his mind.
And Henry did, picking Gear for the end of year tour. Steve Hansen had a mini cause celebre in Liam Messam when the Chiefs stalwart played the house down in Super Rugby in 2012, but was overlooked for Adam Thomson and Victor Vito.
When neither impressed in the first two tests of the year, in came Messam for the third and was told he had one chance to secure his test future. And he took it, playing superbly and held his place in the squad through to the next World Cup.
Henry and Hansen had their views, held their ground for a while but weren't pig-headed about Gear and Messam.
And so Boshier could provide a big clue to whether Foster can establish himself in the top echelon of test coaches.
Lachlan Boshier playing for Taranaki in the Mitre10 Cup. Photo / Photosport
The best All Blacks coaches have been willing to be flexible, back down from a view if they feel they have had reason to. As much as selection can be the coach's prerogative, the best don't see it that way by right.
If Boshier can find the destructive edge he's been sent away to search for then the road to test football must be reopened to him.
If that's what he's missing and he finds it, then his reward has to be promotion to the All Blacks. Players who are sent away to fix things, need to be rewarded when their house is put in order otherwise everyone loses faith and trust in the selection and feedback process.
