Scotty Stevenson: Andy Ellis - legend on the sideline

Andy Ellis' return could be one of the stories of the 2015 Cup. Picture / Christine Cornege

Another World Cup is nigh, and the man who sealed the All Blacks’ win in 2011 is ready to be called out of exile

When Andy Ellis kicked the ball into touch to seal the deal on the All Blacks' 2011 Rugby World Cup victory, no one, least of all him, would have thought that would be his final act in international rugby.

It would have been easy to understand if he had called time on his New Zealand career and fled for a few francs or yen, but he didn't. He didn't say, "Well, that's me, thanks for the memories".

Instead he went back to work with the Crusaders and with Canterbury, expertly guiding both teams around the park, only to find that his victorious walk off the Eden Park field would take him all the way down the path to the international wilderness.

In his six seasons of All Blacks rugby, Ellis was perhaps never considered the starring halfback. In all his years as a Crusader, he has been content to battle for the starting spot with others such as Kahn Fotuali'i, Kevin Senio and Willi Heinz. At All Blacks level it was Kelleher, Weepu, Leonard and Cowan. Of his 26 tests, he started in only 10, but in three of those he went the distance.

In an age where Aaron Smith's aerobic capacity is hailed, it pays to remind ourselves that others have had the same capabilities.

Not a star, but a competitor - that has been his hallmark in a professional career that began in 2005, when he walked into a Canterbury side stacked with enough All Blacks to start a test match and still fill the bench. Nothing seemed to faze him then, and that competitive streak that was studded with the impetuousness of youth was soon smoothed by a growing maturity.

He could take much of the credit for Canterbury's six consecutive provincial titles, though he wouldn't be too interested in that. Even as the spotlight shone on him at the Rugby Awards in 2013, where he was named ITM Cup Player of the Year, he spent the first three minutes of the interview thanking everyone else in the team, his coaches and the fans and people of Christchurch and the Canterbury province.

So central to the cause has he been at provincial level that it would not be drawing too long a bow to suggest that his decision to take a sabbatical in Japan rather than play the 2014 ITM Cup season put the deepest of dents in Canterbury's hopes for a seventh consecutive title.

Those hopes were finally dashed with a second defeat of the season to the Makos.

So where does that leave Ellis? Soon enough he will be back with the Crusaders at Rugby Park, back on the start line with all the others, back trying to find a way to finally win another title. One Crusader told me that the goal of the team every year is to win the championship, so when they don't they consider the season a failure. They came within 30 seconds of success last year, before one last penalty and one clutch kick. We called them runners-up. That's not how they saw it.

Ellis would have felt it more than most. He hates to lose. He hates to be left out. He will know - deep down in that place where only careful introspection will take you - that after Rugby World Cup 2011 he had a chance to nail his spot and didn't.

He will know that despite the three-year cold shoulder from the selectors, another robust and consistent season of Super Rugby could rekindle an All Black career and give him another chance at the greatest prize in all the game, the William Webb Ellis Cup.

There are fans who don't believe this. There are those who remain unsold on Ellis as a player of international class. They say, "he wasn't good enough for the All Blacks for the last three years, so how is he going to be good enough now?"

The All Blacks selectors have always maintained through the Ellis exile that they knew what he could do. The corollary being they didn't know what the likes of TJ Perenara and Tawera Kerr-Barlow and Augie Pulu could do. They've now each had a taste, albeit a nibble when compared to the experience of Ellis.

Those in the know say but for the vagaries of the Japanese transfer window, Andy Ellis' return to international rugby would have come last year, on the All Blacks' end of year tour. That wasn't to be.

But if the desire is there from both the player and the selectors, the Ellis comeback could be one of the great stories of the 2015 tournament.

It would also be one of the great tales in tenacity and perseverance. And those, in sport, are usually the best tales of all.