All Blacks rookies on a high
‘Be yourself’. That has been the simple message to the host of new faces in the All Blacks as preparations finally start to take shape for test football.
More than nine months since Ian Foster was named coach, and more than four since Sam Cane was named captain, the squad, named earlier this month, had their first get together in Whakata¯ ne this week.
In a Covid-19-wrecked 2020 calendar which saw mid-year tests against Scotland and Wales scrapped, it’s now all go for Bledisloe Cup fixtures in Wellington on October 11 and Auckland on October 18, then the Rugby Championship in Australia.
Less than three weeks out from what will be the first post-Covid game on the international schedule, there is a wave of excitement from the stack of All Blacks rookies, with more than 25 per cent of the squad uncapped at test level.
Among the 35-man group (which is set to expand to 46 for the Rugby Championship), there are no fewer than nine players yet to taste test footy, with Akira Ioane and Asafo Aumua being joined by new faces Alex Hodgman, Tupou Vaa’i, Quinten Strange, Cullen Grace, Hoskins Sotutu, Caleb Clarke and Will Jordan in this first year of a new World Cup cycle.
For the likes of Grace, yesterday’s open training session was a pinch-yourself moment for a 20-year-old who not all that long ago was the one asking for, rather than signing, autographs.
‘‘It is pretty surreal, actually,’’ he said. ‘‘It doesn’t seem like too long ago I was one of those kids being a fan of the All Blacks. I know how they’d be feeling seeing the All Blacks here, they’d be really excited, so it’s really cool we can come here and they can experience one of our trainings.’’
The hard-hitting Crusader has just worked his way back from a broken thumb which curtailed his Super Rugby Aotearoa season, but so strong was his form prior, he had done enough to make the cut.
Now it’s about getting a feel for the big time.
‘‘It’s obviously a dream of mine to be here, so to be here’s pretty unreal,’’ he said. ‘‘And to be around such experience and such knowledge has been awesome.
‘‘Coming into a new environment you’ve always got to prove yourself, so it’s just about putting my hand up and learning as much as I can at the moment so that I can be available if it [the chance] does come up for selection.
‘‘You can’t really come in and try be someone else, you’ve been picked for a reason so just coming in and being yourself and bringing what you have to the table is what’s going to be key.’’
That is right out of the playbook of senior figure Sam Whitelock, Grace’s Canterbury and Crusaders team-mate, who, with Kieran Read’s retirement, is now the most experienced member of the All
Blacks, with 117 tests (fifth all-time for New Zealand).
‘‘I think back to when I first was asked to come in, everyone said to me, ‘just worry about yourself’,’’ Whitelock said. ‘‘And that’s the best advice that I got given, and it’s the same advice I’d give to any of the other seven new guys. Just be yourself, play the way you’ve always played, because that’s what’s got you here.’’
Whitelock said it had been ‘‘pretty humbling’’ for the squad to
head to a smaller town and see the anticipation in the community – something which had been mirrored by the keenness of his young new team-mates.
‘‘I think the cool thing is just seeing the excitement on faces. I think Will Jordan set his alarm a couple of times this morning just so he didn’t sleep through one.’’
Meanwhile, Beauden Barrett didn’t attend the camp. He was at home with wife Hannah, as they await the birth of their first child.