Barrett holds his All Black spot
There was a moment when All Blacks coach considered benching Beauden Barrett this week.
‘‘Then you think ‘well, you’ve got the best five-eighth in the world playing on the bench. You may as well play him [from the start],’’ Hansen said in Cape Town on Thursday morning (NZT).
Most of the other selections decisions went the same way, to the point where you’d have to say Hansen has gone with his best available line-up for Sunday morning’s clash with South Africa at Newlands.
Nehe Milner-Skudder is back on the right wing, Ryan Crotty returns to second five-eighth, Sam Canes and Liam Squire are the flankers and Sam Whitelock is at lock.
‘‘We’re looking to play a team that will be hurting incredibly, I would suggest, after [losing 57-0 at] Albany and we need to make sure that we meet that and continue on growing and developing ourselves. To do that you’ve got to play a good team.,’’ said Hansen.
‘‘Whilst we’ve left some people out that people might’ve thought might have got a game, or we could’ve given someone else a rest, there’s a bigger picture and we know where we’re going with the rest [and rotation] and stuff.’’
Which meant, for instance, someone such as flanker Jerome Kaino again missing out on the 23 and Lima Sopoaga continuing to bide his time behind Barrett on the bench.
Asked if there had been any debate about who’d play at 6 this week and Hansen was succinct. ‘‘Nup,’’ he said.
‘‘Liam Squire’s played outstanding and we left him at home to give him a rest and freshen him up for this game and it would be pointless to just chuck JK [Kaino] in. There’s a test match in a couple of weeks, quite a few games on the northern tour, so JK will get opportunities in those games at some point.’’
In the meantime, Matt Todd is the reserve loose forward, with Patrick Tuipulotu again the spare lock. Tawera Kerr-Barlow is Aaron Smith’s halfback back-up, with Sopoaga assuming the spot Ngani Laumape had on last week’s bench.
Hansen said there was nothing that could be read into the omissions of TJ Perenara and Anton Lienert-Brown, other than that it was their turn to rest. ‘‘They’ll be back in.’’
On the back of a tough 36-10 win over Argentina in Buenos Aires, and plenty of travel, this week is regarded as the most difficult on the All Blacks’ schedule. That’s where Whitelock, Cane, Crotty, Squire and Sopoaga come in.
‘‘They’re a lot fresher and they’re excited to be here,’’ said Hansen of the five players given the Buenos Aires leg off.
‘‘Whenever you’re not in the group, and come back into it, you can noticeably tell people have missed it and aren’t taking it for granted. That freshen up for them has worked well for us because
they’ve just lifted everybody else up.
‘‘We’ve had a good week. Whilst we haven’t sweated a lot, we’ve done some good work on getting our clarity done and a lot of relationship meetings and a lot of mental stuff done for getting that clarity that you need to be able to hook into it on Saturday.’’
New Zealand have beaten South Africa 41-13, 57-15 and 57-0, in their last three meetings, but you won’t catch Hansen denigrating this week’s hosts.
‘‘We’ve said that after each game [that] I don’t think the scoreboard actually reflects what’s happened on the park. We’ve had to work really hard.’’
As they expect to this time as well.