Cane: Time to groom new leader

Let’s be fair, like any discussion around the All Blacks and who to step into the breach, it’s an embarrassment-of-riches scenario.

Pick any of the senior pros to take on the captaincy and you don’t have a hint of suspicion that any of them won’t do a fine job.

However, unless we were to see something completely radical like a co-captain scenario, which seems to work at club teams in extended week-by-week competition formats, Steve Hansen must choose just the one man to lead the national side.

And that man really has to be Sam Cane.

This appointment, on face value, might just be for the June series against France. But there is deeper value to it, when looking ahead.

At 32, with recent intensive back surgery and his history with concussion, Kieran Read isn’t going to be around for much longer. Yes, he’s the man who will carry New Zealand through next year’s World Cup, but that’s where his current contract ends, and where retirement likely figures.

With this in mind, this upcoming three-test series should be about grooming the next in line.

That will not be Ben Smith (31) nor will it be Sam Whitelock (29), but it will be Cane, who at 26 presents at the perfect age.

Oh, and then there’s his actual playing ability and leadership qualities too.

The tried and true prerequisite for a skipper is to be the best player in their position. And, now out of Richie McCaw’s shadow, Cane is not only the country’s premier openside flanker – remember Ardie Savea? – but is setting the worldwide benchmark for No 7 play as well.

You have to hand it to Cane for taking the Savea challenge head on. He’ll never compare in the X-factor stakes but what he has done is stick to his guns, reinvent himself somewhat in the physical, aggressive stakes, and become an absolute defensive colossus.

Tackle-breaking runs look good but those huge hits, and turnover snaffles when desperate on defence, are what lift team-mates, and Cane is making an art form of that, with both the All Blacks and with the Chiefs in Super Rugby.

Cane has been one of, if not the best, Kiwi player in 2018, and there will be the obvious follow-me concept to having him as skipper, but then a lovely dollop of leadership luxury on top of that too.

In a revamped Chiefs team Cane has adapted to working with a new coach and led from the front in tremendous fashion, getting them out of some tough patches through both rolling up the sleeves and also directing traffic.

Growing into the role with every year, it’s his third season as co-captain, this time with Charlie Ngatai. But Cane is the one who does all the talking - calm and direct with his players, articulate and honest with the press, and canny and genial with the referees.

That latter category isn’t to be glossed over lightly either, with the world’s greatest captains always having the knack of engaging with the man in the middle in the right way, being the crucial messenger for team-mates’ queries, quickly working out how their team needs to adapt, giving the referee something to think about himself, and slowing the game down when tactically required.

Cane is becoming a master at this, and in a potentially niggling French assignment in wintry June, some of this nous may well be called for.