A look at the newly announced All Blacks squad for 2023.
OPINION:
In his fourth and final year at the helm, Ian Foster has found his best selection form, picking the best squad of his All Blacks tenure and one that should finally spark widespread optimism about the fate of the national team.
Nearly all previous squads of the Foster erahave contained an element of contention – a definitive sense of the selectors seeing different things to everyone else.
But what we have now on the eve of the World Cup is realisation that Foster has been prepared to use the entirety of the cycle to land on the right players as much through a process of trial and error as anything else.
His selection method could even be described as frog kissing, but few will care about the label if later this year his squad, after three tough years, finally comes right and makes a big impression at the World Cup.
All Blacks head coach Ian Foster (centre) with assistants Joe Schmidt and Jason Ryan. Photo / Photosport
And if that seemed only a remote possibility even in November last year, it suddenly feels significantly more realistic now that Foster has picked a 36-man group that has experience, a sprinkling of the unknown and a ruggedness that has not been a hallmark of his previous selections.
Maybe most importantly of all, Foster has picked a squad that contains no passengers.
There is no one there who didn’t deliver in Super Rugby Pacific; no one there trading on their reputation alone, picked on the memory of what they may have once done.
This is a form team that Foster has picked – players who have earned their spots and the only grumble would perhaps be that he wasn’t able to find room in the initial 36 for Shaun Stevenson, who will be with the team nevertheless as injury cover for Mark Telea.
Other than that, there are no arguments to mount against the balance, tone and general vibe of what the selected group contains and represents.
The first two-and-a-half years of his coaching tenure were defined by the All Blacks’ lack of physical presence.
An ability to dominate collisions – with or without the ball – and produce the general mayhem required to compete was a consistent failing of the All Blacks between 2020 until midway through last year.
They didn’t seem to have either the required mix of combat athletes or the ruthless mindset to impose themselves.
That problem was being fixed in the second half of last year, and this new squad reflects the coaching team’s depth of understanding about what sort of players they need to throw into battle if they are going to continue to progress as a team that can handle frontline, active duty.
It would have been criminal not to recall Luke Jacobson, who has proved himself throughout this Super Rugby campaign that he is the sort of real-deal soldier that wins wars.
Chiefs loose forward Luke Jacobson. Photo / Photosport
Shannon Frizell, while he previously hasn’t quite managed to replicate his club form in the test arena, couldn’t have done more this year to say he’s ready to try one more time to see if he can make the step up.
He’s got presence and destructive abilities and like Jacobson, he’s shown this year a tremendous appetite for hard work.
Much the same can be said about new cap Samipeni Finau, the versatile Chiefs loose forward who has played with an almost reckless fearlessness for his own well-being.
These three epitomise what the modern game is all about – loose forwards who revel in the collision zone and have an attitude to throw themselves at everything and then get back on their feet and do it again.
But so too are they hungry to contribute elsewhere and it is the authenticity of their physicality and their mental energy which has seen them selected and Hoskins Sotutu and Akira Ioane discarded.
The arrival of the 144kg Tamaiti Williams in the front-row adds to the portfolio of mobile props who can scrummage and cleanout and yet do their share of effective ball-carrying.
The All Blacks didn’t begin this World Cup cycle with the players, attitude and technical skills to indulge in collision warfare, but there should be some confidence that they do now have that critical aspect in place.
Whatever happens in France, it’s hard to see that the All Blacks will traipse home dejected that they were beaten up by the tournament bully.
In fact, there’s even a chance that the All Blacks might turn out to be the tournament bully such is the weighting they have placed on robust ball-carriers and reliable defenders.
