All Blacks have eye on Japan
All Blacks already planning for 2019
It is becoming increasingly apparent the All Blacks are operating with an eye on the 2019 World Cup.
By the end of the year, it will become more obvious the All Blacks used the Rugby Championship to begin the process of building and developing a squad and style of football they think will work in Japan.
There are signs of the long-term thinking everywhere. Ben Smith’s sabbatical is one of the more obvious.
The All Blacks coaches believe Smith will remain a vital component of their back three in 2019.
Be it at fullback, or more likely wing, head coach Steve Hansen wants the 31-year-old vice-captain at the Cup. Smith’s sabbatical is all about giving him the space he needs to mentally and physically recharge and make it to Japan.
Owen Franks is another who is now being managed with 2019 in mind. He has a long-standing Achilles problem that needs a prolonged period of not playing or surgery.
The 29-year-old was going to play in Dunedin and then miss the rest of the Rugby Championship. His late withdrawal from Saturday’s team has brought his non-involvement forward a week and given the coaching team fractionally longer to develop Nepo Laulala and Ofa Tu’ungafasi.
Both are aged in their mid-20s and have been identified as World Cup probables and the plan now will be to build their playing time so they can reach Japan with ample experience.
By the time Franks returns — and at this stage, that is unclear — the All Blacks are hoping one of Laulala or Tu’ungafasi will have developed to the point they can provide the same second-half punch Charlie Faumuina used to deliver.
The midfield is another area where the World Cup is already on the horizon. It’s a reasonable guess the coaches see Sonny Bill Williams and Ryan Crotty as the preferred pairing they would like to develop further.
It’s a vital part of the field for the All Blacks to get right and history shows that teams are more likely to win a World Cup with an established midfield combination.
What the All Blacks also discovered is that if they can have a regular midfield bench option who can work well with one or both of the established starters, then it deepens the attacking mix.
In 2015, Williams played that role, regularly combining with Ma’a Nonu or Conrad Smith. Anton LienertBrown, who can play at 12 or 13, is being groomed for that job in 2019.
“It would be nice to get a bit of stability,” All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said of the midfield.
“If you look at this year, we haven’t been able to do that much and I think Anton [Lienert-Brown] has got to come into that equation, too.
“He showed us enough last year to suggest he gives us a really good option as a third one, and growing his ability to do things for us is going to be important, too.
“And then we have Ngani [Laumape] sitting in the background, who is learning and getting more comfortable in the environment.”
If there is one World Cup development area not currently on track, it is halfback. Ideally, once Tawera KerrBarlow announced he would be heading to France in October, the coaches wanted to start the process of finding a third option this year.
But they have ruled that out on the basis they haven’t yet seen anyone they feel has shown enough form or ability to handle the demands of test football.