As conversion projects go, when the All Blacks embarked this year on a mission to return Rieko Ioane to the wing, it seemed low-risk, relatively straightforward and highly likely to succeed.
Instinctively, it felt right for All Blacks coach Scott Robertson to transition Ioane from the midfield and rekindle his test career on the wing, where he was once viewed as among the deadliest finishers on the planet.
Right for three reasons. Firstly, Ioane’s self-determined quest to establish himself as a world-class midfielder stalled in 2024, and while his defensive offering was consistently impressive, his facilitation of the attack through accurate and astute distribution hit what seemed to be an insurmountable blockade.
Ioane didn’t have a centre’s instincts about when to pass and when to run. But whenever he was shifted to the wing in the latter part of most games, he still had a wing’s instincts and looked more comfortable at the end of the backline using his pace and power to finish things off than he did in the middle of it, trying to create something.
And thirdly, Billy Proctor had shown throughout 2024’s Super Rugby Pacific season and in his two appearances that year for the All Blacks that he was a more compelling alternative at centre – better equipped to read the game and to execute the right play.
It was, perhaps, unusual for a midfielder to push out to the wing rather than the other way around, but Ioane, who mostly played on the wing for the Blues and the All Blacks between 2016 and 2019, remains one of the fastest players in New Zealand.
However, both parts of this project – converting Ioane and establishing Proctor – have not gone swimmingly so far and the chattering classes are starting to openly wonder whether Robertson should abandon the mission.
Ioane, ironically perhaps, spent 2024 looking like a wing playing centre, and has now begun 2025 looking like a centre playing on the wing.
His instinct is to no longer hold his width and await his opportunity to strike as it was when he first played international rugby, and instead he now drifts in-field.
There is a balance to playing wing – a need to know when to go looking for action and when to stay put, patiently waiting out wide for that half-chance to pounce.
Ioane has also been slow to remember that it’s a big part of his job as a wing to chase high kicks and either compete in the air or tackle the opposition catcher.
Proctor has equally struggled to be influential and replicate his Super form in the test arena. Some of it may be the natural difficulty of adapting to the greater pace and intensity, but the All Blacks’ attack patterns also appear to constrain his strengths.
The All Blacks are using Jordie Barrett as a second playmaker and running so much off him that Proctor is rarely being used as a distributor and decision-maker, and is instead being required to clean out rucks and work off the ball.
The upshot is that the All Blacks, despite the change, haven’t produced the sort of flowing attack they hoped for and now there are two schools of thought – those who think it should be written off as a failed experiment, and those who feel that it’s the right call and that it needs an extended period to succeed.
This is the nature of change projects – when they don’t deliver immediate proof they will work, the architects have their convictions challenged.
That was the case earlier this week when Robertson was asked to give his thoughts on how Ioane is tracking on the wing.
Robertson cited Ioane’s team-leading production on a suite of non-defined statistics that the All Blacks measure.
It seemed to be a little deflective, as the stats that matter for wings are defenders beaten, line breaks, running metres and tries scored – and Ioane is not topping any of these.
But Robertson’s point was that he is very much in the school of long-term investment on this one.
He clearly feels that Ioane is working diligently to relearn his old craft and that time in the role will ultimately prove to be the catalyst for the 28-year-old to rekindle his old instincts and terrorise teams from the wing again.
He seems just as committed to establishing Proctor as the preferred centre – again, because he believes that time will be the factor that ultimately enables the 26-year-old to find his feet and convert his promise.
The “give them time” rationale stacks up more readily in the case of Proctor. He’s been New Zealand’s best Super centre for the past two years and history has shown that it’s not a position that can be learned quickly at international level.
It’s questionable whether a similarly generous time investment in Ioane will pay off, because, as the financial world reminds everyone, past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
Just because Ioane has been a world-class wing doesn’t automatically mean he can be again, and an extended investment in him must be weighed against the cost of not picking others such as Caleb Clarke, Emoni Narawa and Leroy Carter.
In other words, if the All Blacks made equal investments in Ioane, Clarke, Carter and Narawa. which of them would likely be the best choice to pick by the 2027 World Cup?
Maybe Ioane is the best choice, but there does need to be a greater body of evidence gathered in the next few tests to support that.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.