Gregor Paul: All Blacks risk sending terrible message with choice of third halfback for Rugby World Cup

COMMENT:

There will be innumerable good judges of rugby talent left bewildered if Brad Weber is ignored by the All Blacks this year.

This season the Chiefs halfback has delivered one of the great battling-against-the-odds campaigns, where his energy, tenacity and ability to make things happen are the primary, and maybe only, reason his team is still clinging to the hope of making the playoffs.

Weber has been irrepressible – seemingly powered by a conviction that if he keeps running and keeps believing, those around him will find it infectious.

It hasn't always worked out like that, but it did on Saturday against the Crusaders in Suva.

There was this sense that at 20-0 down the Chiefs were ready to throw in the towel but then saw their indefatigable number nine ferreting here, there and everywhere and were inspired to collectively lift themselves to previously unknown heights.

The win in Fiji was the reward that Weber deserved – a kind of thank you from his teammates for everything he's done for them this year.

The Chiefs have managed to get by without the colossal presence of Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane and Damian McKenzie for much of this season, but it's doubtful they would still have even a remote chance of making the last eight had it not been for Weber.

And that is, of course, what makes things fascinating as Weber has produced dynamic, inspiring rugby while the man the All Blacks selectors rate above him, Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi, has barely been sighted.

Such a situation is not unheard of. There have been plenty of occasions in the past where a club has ranked two players in the same position in a different order to the national selectors.

Cane hardly played Super Rugby in 2012 as the Chiefs wanted to start with Tanerau Latimer at openside, yet the All Blacks picked the former.

And as All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said earlier this week, Tahuriorangi didn't play much for the Chiefs last year either, but they saw enough to pick him ahead of Weber.

Tahuriorangi has again done all he could to make an impression. When he's been given game time, he's mostly played well and shown that he's in possession of a natural passing game which makes him the closest player in style to Aaron Smith.

Potentially Hansen could justify selecting Tahuriorangi again this year on the basis that he wants a player in the squad with a similar skill-set to Smith.

It won't be a make-or-break selection in terms of the World Cup defence – the third halfback may barely play in Japan, which is why it is probable rather than certain that the All Blacks will even take three.

But if the All Blacks do decide to take three halfbacks to the World Cup and Tahuriorangi is included alongside Smith and TJ Perenara, not many people will understand why.

It will be a hard argument to justify. Impossible almost because sometimes a player produces such an obviously brilliant body of work that to not reward them with national recognition is to endanger the entire ethos on which the selection system is built.

Weber may not have the same polished distribution of Smith and Tahuriorangi, but he's had an incredible influence.

He's damaged teams with his support running and vision and in a side that has often been falling apart, he's still had the intrinsic desire to push himself to the edge of his physical limits.

He's been instrumental in upping the tempo at which the Chiefs play and involving himself in those critical, game-turning plays.

And most importantly, his work rate has been off the scale and there just can't be any doubt that the All Blacks could make good use of what he is offering.

There can't be any doubt, then, that if he's overlooked, it will send a terrible message about how much the selectors value work rate, influence, character and sheer determination to stay in the fight.

Weber has earned a call-up and if nothing else, a chance to wear the black jersey at least once before the World Cup squad is picked to show that he can deliver in the test arena what he has been producing in Super Rugby.