It might be Tamanivalu time for the All Blacks
In-form Kaino has learnt how to set high standards
Let’s go out on a limb and suggest that Seta Tamanivalu will start at centre for the All Blacks on Saturday.
Malakai Fekitoa, Anton Lienert-brown and Rieko Ioane are the other midfield candidates. Ben Smith might end up there too, said assistant coach Ian Foster, but was not being considered for a starting role against Australia at Westpac Stadium.
Tamanivalu has two test caps to his name and Lienert-brown and Ioane none so, to some extent, the final decision will come down to an educated guess.
‘‘Some players we like to hold back a little bit because we just want to make sure that when they get on that big stage they’re 100 per cent clear about what they have to do.
‘‘That’s our major consideration, but we’ve got a pretty good idea where we’re going,’’ Foster said yesterday. They should do. Rugby teams are typically picked on a Monday, the players told Tuesday and everyone else given the news on Thursday.
This situation is unique, though, given how green all the candidates are.
‘‘We’ve got a plan - clearly about what we want to do. But we still want to make sure that we’re watching and considering that plan every day, based on the evidence that we have in front of us,’’ said Foster.
‘‘They’re here because they’re good players.
‘‘They’re here because we think they can take that next step up and then we monitor that on a daily basis, trying to think when’s the right time to put them in.’’
The coaches like what the competing players have produced so far.
‘‘Seta’s obviously been with us before so he’s probably got a head start, in terms of his knowledge of what we do, and we saw a little bit Jerome Kaino well remembers his own initiation into ‘‘All Black life.’’
Just 20 and with only one season of provincial rugby under his belt, the loose forward found himself on New Zealand’s 2004 end-of-year tour, playing in the finale against the Barbarians.
Now 33 and a two-time Rugby World Cup winner, Kaino is one of those players now grooming the next generation of All Blacks. There’s a bunch in the squad at the moment, all dreaming of the kind of career Kaino has carved out for himself.
‘‘What I learned is how the professionals - the guys like Richie [Mccaw], Tana [Umaga], Anton Oliver was in the team at the time how they operated and how the team operated and what I needed to do to get up to speed to be a professional rugby player and also be an All Black,’’ Kaino said.
‘‘It was a shock to the system, but I loved it and craved it and really wanted to be back in the All Black set-up.’’
From uncapped players such as Rieko Ioane, Liam Coltman, Damian Mckenzie and Anton Lienert-brown, to others with only an appearance or two under their belt such as Kane Hames, Liam Squire, Elliot Dixon, James Parsons and Seta Tamanivalu, there are a swag of blokes hungry to learn the same lessons Kaino did.
He believes the modern player probably has a better handle on
of that today,’’ Foster said.
‘‘But I thought Rieko learnt well and what we saw on the training park was pretty positive. Don’t forget Anton’s still there, just learning, too.’’
It’s not learning the All Blacks are looking for, though, but knowing.
The player with the best grasp professional rugby than he did at the same age, although being an All Black does come with a unique set of pressures and expectations.
‘‘A lot of how we do things in the
on things will be the one who starts.
‘‘We can see that through the trainings but also in conversations off the park,’’ said Foster.
‘‘One of the reasons that’s really important for us, is we don’t want players going out there and spending their time thinking about a lot of things on the park. We want the All Blacks hasn’t changed much, with the standards and values and how we want to play the game.
‘‘It’s up to us [older hands] to try and get players up to speed around
game to be instinctive to them so they just go out and play.’’
The team certainly did that in the first match of this Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship series.
Their 42-8 win over Australia in Sydney was even more comprehensive than the final score looked, thanks to two tries being how we do things here,’’ said Kaino.
‘‘They’re a little bit shy and standoff-ish, initially.
‘‘Then you see them once they get their confidence and once they
disallowed.
But Foster cautioned people not to expect the same outcome at Westpac Stadium.
‘‘What I’ve learnt from the Bledisloe and what we’ve learnt as a team, is there’s three singular games in a year and every game that you’ve just had doesn’t seem to have a reflection on the next get an understanding of how we operate in the team, then they really come out of their shell and that’s what we want.
‘‘The new players we’ve got now, we really want them to feel comfortable as fast as possible and to get to grips with All Black life.’’
It’s not an exact science and some players do come to grips with things quicker than others. But if you’re prepared to watch and listen, you won’t go far wrong.
‘‘We’re not in their faces all the time, it’s more leading with actions. They see that and they see how you operate, they see how you do things around the environment on and off the field [and] for us that’s a lot more important than barking at them and telling them what to do,’’ Kaino said.
Any All Black watching the 70-test veteran play against Australia last Saturday, will have spotted how much it still means. Kaino played with real vigour and his reaction to scoring a first-half try said a lot.
Even if the blindside flanker felt a little sheepish afterwards, having hurled the ball into the turf and put on his best scowl.
‘‘I never really get in those situations too often so I got a little bit too excited when I scored.’’
Kaino had to be patient, after charging down a Bernard Foley kick and then hoping the ball would sit up for im.
‘‘I’ve been in a few situations where I’ve waited for the ball to bounce and it never bounces up and I drop it, so I was glad that it stuck.’’
one,’’ he said.
‘‘It goes from a bigger margin to an extremely small one and then we’ve been bitten a few times, so it’s just another game.
‘‘They’ll be very keen to put a performance on the park and we’re pretty desperate to show that we can back up and put another great win out ourselves.’’