Rugby: Kerr-Barlow begins bid to capture RWC place

Tawera Kerr-Barlow.

Tawera Kerr-Barlow is ahead of schedule and thankful the All Blacks selectors have taken a major leap of faith by including him in their extended squad on exactly zero minutes of rugby in 2015.

He won't be joining them just yet, though, and will seek to prove his form and fitness this Saturday for the Maori All Blacks against Fiji in Suva. Kerr-Barlow has come through 120 minutes of Waikato club rugby for Hautapu after more than nine months on the sideline following a serious knee/hamstring injury last October playing for the All Blacks against the Springboks.

It will be the 24-year-old halfback's first outing for the Maori. His uncle Tukere Barlow played league for the New Zealand Maori.

"I'm extremely happy to be in this environment. I haven't been able to play for them in the past couple of years because their tours have coincided with the All Blacks, but it's a team I always wanted to play for."

Kerr-Barlow has his critics, but he has done the yards on his long rehab, and it perhaps helped that two of his main rivals - Andy Ellis and Augustine Pulu - did not play as well as they had done in 2014. That third All Blacks halfback berth is still up for grabs, and Kerr-Barlow wants to seize it.

"I had my goals and dates I wanted to be back, but my injury has healed quicker than I thought it would. It's enabled me to have this opportunity."

The knee, though not without some discomfort after heavy workloads, is now as solid as a rock.

"I don't think about it now. It's only when jokers like you ask me about it!"

He says there were no dark days about never making it back, not just from surgery, but to get back on the field and be able to perform at a high level.

"No, I always had a lot of belief to make it back. The surgeon said I possibly wouldn't get back to playing at international level."

On Saturday he will prove that prediction wrong. Also helpful was the odd chat with Silver Ferns netball defender Casey Kopua, another from Waikato, who underwent gruelling rehab on a bad knee injury, but has won her World Cup place. Kerr-Barlow knows he will have to keep on top of his rehab and stretching for the rest of his career.

For now, he is looking to repay the faith. If he does, then he may even swap with Brad Weber when the All Blacks consider their squad for the July 17 Rugby Championship opener.

"They will reassess me after the Fiji game. They don't want to chuck me in the pressure-cooker straight away.

"I didn't expect to be named at all, so I was stoked. Obviously, I was liaising with them throughout my injury. My goal was always to make that RWC squad. A lot of hard work has gone in and there's more to come."