Greg Taipari: Coping without Dan Carter

LIKE EVERY armchair All Blacks coach, I have a dilemma - what do I do now that I've lost one of my pivotal players?

For the past four years, since I was the armchair coach for the All Blacks at the last World Cup, I have based my whole team around two players - Richie McCaw and Daniel Carter.

When my medical staff informed me via a media statement saying "McCaw has a cramp in his big toe" I naturally thought, "Good, I needed an excuse to give him a rest". Shortly after that via a text I find out Carter has tweaked his groin and is gone for the rest of the World Cup.

Are the rugby gods playing a cruel joke on me? Just 24 hours earlier I was looking at a perfect weekend - South Africa looked second rate against Samoa, France experienced the chant "Tooongaaa!" from a smiling Tongan front row, Johnny Wilkinson was kicking like he had Jandals on and the Warriors were playing in the NRL grand final.

Now I'm faced with another year of the Warriors - still with no NRL trophy - and no Carter to direct my perfect plan of running rugby with a cheeky drop goal just to rub it in and to reclaim the Webb Ellis Cup after a 26-year absence from the NZRFU trophy cabinet.

So what do I do? Well don't worry, rugby fans, all is not lost. I've got a plan. Colin Slade did okay against Canada, although I'm thinking his confidence hasn't quite returned. So when we play Argentina on Sunday at 8.30pm at Eden Park, I'm gonna give Slade maybe 50 minutes of rugby and then bring on Aaron Cruden.

If there is one thing I've learned being the armchair coach for 100 tests, it's that you need to have that x-factor in a test match. Carter had it and Cruden has it in abundance.

I purposely left the Manawatu flyer out of the original squad until now, so he is an unknown factor to our opponents.

So just to give the Daily Post readers an early insight into the team I'm selecting for our game against Argentina on Sunday, here it is.

By the way if anyone has Graham Henry's cell number can you text this list to him? Cheers.

Greg's squad: Tony Woodcock, Kevin Mealamu, Owen Franks, Brad Thorn, Sam Whitelock, Jerome Kaino, Richie McCaw (c), Keiran Read, Piri Weepu, Colin Slade, Richard Kahui, Ma'a Nonu, Conrad Smith, Cory Jane, Israel Dagg. Reserves: Andrew Hore, Ben Franks, Ali Williams, Victor Vito, Jimmy Cowan, Aaron Cruden, Sonny Bill Williams.

Now I know many of you will be saying, "Hey, what about Mils Muliaina and his 100th test?" Sorry, I don't have room for sentiment and doesn't it make a better question for the lid of a Tui bottle in years to come? Who was the All Black who played 99 tests?