All Blacks: Charlie short of the perfect fit

Charlie Faumuina has to get fit if he wants to be an All Black again. Photo / Getty Images

Charlie Faumuina might have committed the biggest sin an All Black can - not being fit enough.

The coaches take it as a given every player selected will have the intrinsic desire, awareness and skills to keep themselves in appropriate physical condition.

It's a high-performance environment and players have access to the best nutrition and advice. They have no choice but to spend much of their time training as a group. Outside of those team sessions, they have access to the best training facilities and advice.

To end up not fit enough takes some doing and Faumuina now has to determine how much he wants to be an All Black.

"He's well aware of what he has to do and knows why he's not in the team," Steve Hansen said.

For things to have reached this point, they must be quite bad. Players don't suddenly find out they aren't considered fit enough. The All Blacks management are constantly monitoring, constantly talking to players.

No one in the squad is ever unsure of expectations and Faumuina's work has been slipping over the past month.

Hansen doesn't want a player as good as Faumuina to disappear from the All Blacks. Since his debut in 2012, he had slowly gathered momentum.

He's a more natural ball player than Owen Franks. He's a better raw athlete in that he covers the ground quicker - or can do when he's fit - and is more agile and dynamic in the tackled ball area.

The All Blacks like the impact from Faumuina off the bench. He's much like former Auckland prop John Afoa, who used to inject some dynamism and ball-carrying clout later in tests.

But Faumuina's impact has been negligible in the Rugby Championship because he's not been fit enough to demonstrate his ball carrying or add to the scrum. He's been a passenger.

Only Faumuina can fix his predicament. He has been given all the help he needs, now he has to knuckle down and do the work. He has to lose weight and improve his aerobic conditioning.

Faumuina will need to work twice as hard behind the scenes to prove to the coaches he wants to be the player they think he can be. And he'll have to deliver fitness test scores that prove his hard work has been worthwhile.

It's not like the amateur days when there was often a difference in fitness between players. Some had jobs or lifestyles that made it easier to stay on top of their conditioning or even get ahead.

In the 1980s, even in the early 1990s, fitness was often the difference between teams. There were teams who could go for 80 minutes and others who couldn't.

Since professionalism, however, all that has changed. There should not really be much difference in the basic levels of fitness of the top-10 teams.

The best teams, even the second tier of contenders, should be able to go the distance and not run out of puff after 65 minutes.