All Blacks: Back three puzzle tough to solve

New All Black Waisake Naholo is one piece of the team's back three puzzle. Photo / Getty

Despite Steve Hansen urging his players not to be anxious about World Cup selection, it's unlikely any of the outside backs in action this weekend will be able to heed his advice.

The back three has become a puzzle, which at this stage, doesn't look obvious as to how it will be solved. There are two secure elements in Ben Smith and Julian Savea, but the remaining two World Cup places remain entirely open.

On Friday night, Charles Piutau, Israel Dagg and Waisake Naholo will do what they can to stake their claim and then the following evening in Auckland, Cory Jane will turn out for the Barbarians.

Naholo is perhaps the player with the luxury of being least burdened by expectation.

The Highlander was Super Rugby's form wing - seemingly coming out of nowhere. Rejected by the Blues in 2013, he played Sevens for New Zealand in the first half of 2014 before turning out for Taranaki in the ITM Cup.

It was while playing for Taranaki that All Black assistant coach Ian Foster concluded there was something about Naholo that was worthy of further exploration so he persuaded Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph to pick up the young Fijian.

It proved the perfect marriage and Naholo runs out tonight wearing the All Black No 14 jersey and with a brief to do what he has done all season and get the ball in his hands, back his instincts and play what he sees.

But while no one within All Black management is taking that bit for granted, what they really need to see from Naholo is the ability to deal with the high ball; astute positioning on defence, strong one-on-one tackling, high workrate and a willingness to work in partnership with Piutau and Dagg.

If Naholo can tick those defensive boxes, he's going to take a giant step towards World Cup inclusion. The attacking threat he poses is such that he's going to seriously tempt the selectors to include him at the World Cup.

His lack of experience will be overlooked - he's just that sort of player whose lack of inhibition is a strength rather than weakness.

"He's played for New Zealand at Sevens before and he's a quality player," said All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen.

"He's just taken a little while to transform that quality from Sevens into fifteens but he's found a home in the Highlanders where he's really taken off and had an outstanding season. He was a pretty easy pick in the end."

With Smith's versatility - he is a natural fullback and brilliant wing - it might be that Piutau, Dagg and Jane are all chasing one spot if Naholo can deliver tonight.

Clearly the selectors are keen to do all they can to restore Dagg to form. They believe the only thing him holding back is lack of football and are likely to keep him in the mix for the next three tests regardless of how he plays tonight. But he'll still need to show signs that he's on the right track - that his running game is coming back and that he hasn't lost any of his accuracy or awareness on defence.

Piutau, who played well on limited rations in Apia, needs a reasonably big game to stay in the picture. His decision to head to Ireland next year won't necessarily count against him, but it does mean he'll have to make a definitive case for inclusion.

And as for Jane, he's the perfect World Cup player when he's in form. Brilliant in the air; clever on the ground and still one of the few men in the world who can finish tries with just a postage stamp amount of space.

But he has to prove at Eden Park that he can still do all that.