Tough calls await as All Blacks selectors look to finalise squad for Lions series

Telling good players they have missed selection remains the worst part of the job for All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.

Which means he is facing a difficult period, as on June 8, the All Blacks will reveal their squad to play the Lions and there will be a surprisingly long list of quality footballers who don’t make the cut.

There’s a few reasons why the casualty list will be higher than normal. The first is that there is significant depth in most positions.

There are also first-choice players who are short of rugby, which means Hansen has to be wary of having too many undercooked starters.

Dane Coles is almost a separate problem again, as he will be named in the 33-man squad but doesn’t have any conditioning behind him, let alone game time.

Normally the All Blacks would risk going through a home series with two hookers. Now they are going to have to name three — probably Coles, Codie Taylor and Nathan Harris — which will squeeze out others elsewhere.

Who exactly misses out will depend on how Hansen thinks he can best juggle his resources.

With Kieran Read, Jerome Kaino and Liam Squire all coming into the series on the back of six-week layoffs and unlikely to have played before the first test, Hansen has to be wary of his loose trio running out of puff in the first test at Eden Park.

Read will start and Sam Cane will be on the openside but the No 6 jersey might have to be given to Steven Luatua, who is in solid form, and Kaino used off the bench with a view to starting him in the second or third test.

The need to carry three blindsides could see Matt Todd miss out, as Ardie Savea is perhaps the better

bench option, and Cane will start all three tests.

With Luatua, Squire, Kaino and Read all potentially named, the selectors may, however, feel they can keep Todd in the mix and instead be frugal at lock, where Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick tend to play 80 minutes, and back them up with just Scott Barrett and one of the loosies. That would see Patrick Tuipulotu and Luke Romano dip out.

The other major pressure point is going to be the midfield, where there won’t be room for all of Sonny Bill Williams, Ryan Crotty, George Moala, Malakai Fekitoa and Anton LienertBrown.

Williams has played himself back to convincing form and Crotty is such a dependable and accurate operator that the selectors will find it hard to look past these two as a starting combination. The puzzle after that will be working out the best way to stack the bench to ensure there is both midfield and back three cover.

That will likely mean one of Damian McKenzie or Jordie Barrett not making the squad, possibly both, and only two from Moala, Fekitoa, Lienert-Brown and Rieko Ioane.