McKenzie impresses

As we have come to expect, he wanted to have a go.

NOW we wait to see how Steve Hansen fits Damian McKenzie and Rieko Ioane into his quest to conquer Rome.

McKenzie and Ioane joined fellow All Blacks Tawera KerrBarlow and Elliot Dixon in the New Zealand Maori’s 54-7 massacre of the United States in their match at Toyota Park in Chicago, but the foursome won’t be transferring to Ireland for that team’s next assignment against Munster.

All Blacks coach Hansen will instead ask them to travel further east, where he will prepare his squad to play Italy next weekend.

Italy, who have never beaten the All Blacks and are not expected to do so anytime in the near future, shouldn’t expect to face a first-string side.

It is almost a given that the national selectors would have sat down before they left New Zealand and scribbled down the teams they want to start against Ireland and Rome in the first two legs of their four-match trip.

So what does this mean for young backs McKenzie and Ioane, who have just one test cap between them?

Rome looms as the logical venue to give Ioane, 19, the baby of the All Blacks squad, a run on the wing.

It would be too generous to say he has given Hansen little choice but to select him on the back of a barnstorming game against the US. There were flashes of the long striding runs that have made him such a success in sevens, yet the ball either didn’t come his way or he was unable to net it.

Instead it was older brother Akira, the man who NZ Maori coach Colin Cooper reckons will