Selectors keep plans for Toeava to themselves

Isaia Toeava trains with Jimmy Cowan before last week's Tri-Nations. Ross Land / Getty Images

The All Black selectors are tight-lipped about their plans for Isaia Toeava and the end of year tour.

Like his teammates, Toeava will have a compulsory two-week stand-down before he returns to the provincial championship, where the panel hopes he gets plenty of rugby for Auckland.

Beyond that, though, the All Blacks were guarded about whether the tour to England, France and Wales would be another stage of Toeava's rugby education.

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Coach Graham Henry did offer a more measured judgment about Toeava's contribution to the squad since the campaign started against Ireland in June.

"I think he has had a huge learning curve over the last three months, I think he just needs to bed down a wee bit and take on board what he has learned in the Air New Zealand Cup and the Super 14 next year," said Henry. "I think it has been a tremendous education for him and things haven't all gone his way, as you can appreciate, so he has to come back from a bit of adversity because he hasn't played as well as he hoped.

"And I think that is a good challenge for a young athlete who has got a lot of talent, to see how good he is in the future.

"I don't think he has ever been in this situation before in his life.

"He has always been able to cope with every level he has played in and been able to handle it. It is a challenge for him - and, I think, a good challenge - and we will see what the intestinal fortitude is like in the future.

"Like he has had the education, gone through the process and now we will see what happens."

The selectors met Toeava this week to reflect on what he had learned and where his game needed to develop.

Backline coach Wayne Smith said Toeava would be a big centre and as yet he had done very little gym work to condense his physique. His skills were the "highest" the selectors had seen and now he needed to play games and condition himself for the rigours ahead.