The All Blacks have an embarrassment of riches in their depth stocks, but the second-row is the one area they believe they are a “little bit thin” heading into the opening Bledisloe Test of the year against the Wallabies.
New All Blacks coach Ian Foster has already named his side, but that won’t be revealed until Friday – 48 hours before their first Test of the year.
On Wednesday, assistant coach John Plumtree was keeping his cards close to his chest, not willing to give any clues about the makeup of the first All Blacks squad since Steve Hansen’s men were dumped out at the semi-finals of last year’s World Cup by England.
“When you’ve looked at selection, not too many people out there can pick the team, and that’s rightly so because there’s just so many great players to select from,” the former Hurricanes coach said.
“It was a pretty tough side to select, and a lot of disappointed boys. But part of this All Blacks culture is about preparing the team and everyone knuckles down and gets to work to prepare the 23 and I’ve seen that, and that’s great.”
Asked what area was the toughest to select from, Plumtree, again, wasn’t giving anything away until admitting that the second-row stocks were down.
“You look at the backs, particularly in the midfield, the back three, you look at 10, nine, the backs there’s lots of selection debate, which makes it great for every New Zealander if they want to try and pick the All Blacks on Friday,” he said.
“And if you look at the forwards it’s not exactly (thin) with the quality of loose-forwards we’ve got and front-rowers, lock we’re a little bit thin and not helped with Quinten Strange getting injured but it’s good to see a guy like Scott Barrett training.”
With Brodie Retallick on sabbatical and Barrett on the comeback from injury, two of the All Blacks’ top three locks are out of action.
They’ve been helped by the return of Sam Whitelock, who managed to pull on the Crusaders jersey earlier than expected after returning to New Zealand following the outbreak of COVID-19.
The All Blacks are expected to recall Patrick Tuipulotu to partner Whitelock in the second-row.
But following Strange’s injury, 20-year-old rookie Tupou Vaa’I is in-line to make his debut off the bench.
If he does get the call-up, it will cap a meteoric rise for the Chiefs lock who only six months ago was building fences with his father.
“The truth is I didn’t even know who he was at the start of the season but he’s come on leaps and bounds with the Chiefs and now he gets a chance to put on a black jersey at some stage. It’s pretty cool,” hooker Codie Taylor said.
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Meanwhile, Plumtree was once again coy around whether two-time World Rugby player of the year Beauden Barrett would start.
“Again, you’re going to have, that’s a good question, ask Fozzie (Foster) and he’ll probably say the same as me, wait until Friday,” he said.
“We know the class of Beauden Barrett and we know the class of Richie Mo’unga and we know how well Jordie Barrett has played and we can go on and on and on. There’s going to be some disappointed players.”
The Wallabies believe Richie Mo’unga will start at fly-half, leaving Barrett and younger brother Jordie to battle it out for the 15 jersey.
"They’ll come here with a real physical mindset around the contact areas, we’ll be expecting that, and they’ll probably play a lot, which we’ll expect, and that’s one of Rens’ basic principles of the game really," Plumtree said.
"Whether they change much will be interesting to see, but it’ll be a real physical encounter."
