All Blacks: Cowan ready to play with the big boys

Jimmy Cowan says he needs to add a running game if he wants to be picked by selectors. Photo / Getty Images

It would be a fair bet Jimmy Cowan has never been overawed. If by some chance he has, he'll never admit it.

That is not his nature. He is a serious competitor.

However, the All Black halfback did have a private "sheesh" moment when he lined up next to Welsh halfback Mike Phillips for the first scrum last week in Carisbrook.

Cowan is a fair size, about 1.82m and 92kg, taller than most halfbacks round the globe and as muscular as any.

But there was Phillips standing at 1.91m and 103kg of skilled aggression, the hub of the Welsh team and one of their main men tonight for the second test in Hamilton.

"He's a big boy all right. That was the first time I've played against him, I think, because he has been injured," Cowan said.

"He was very highly rated with the Lions, very sharp and tough. Did you see the way he stopped Kevvie [Mealamu] in his tracks, not many do that.

"He is a very big part of their team, we saw that last week as he tried to get them going forward and did a lot of their kicking."

Cowan won the All Black race to be starting halfback this season from a clutch of others who performed strongly in the Super 14 series.

He has played 35 tests since his debut six years ago in Rome and has built up his own style and methods.

"I don't want to be like other international halfbacks like Will Genia and Fourie du Preez, I have to play in a style which suits me and the team, I am a player who has to be himself."

So what is that?

"I am aggressive. A lot of my game is built round defence and communication but something these selectors want me to do is add a running game.

"I have to do that otherwise I won't be picked.

"It does not gnaw away at me because the All Black game is built around the No9s. I have to do a lot of the instinctive stuff because that is the way they want me to play."

Cowan is one of the fittest in a very conditioned All Black side. But even he battles at times to get to rucks if there is quick recycled ball in a long continuous passage of play.

It was a matter of making decisions, waiting sometimes to get to the next ruck to spread the ball or have a run.

He enjoyed coming to Waikato Stadium, a ground purpose-built for rugby where the surface was good and the crowds were close.

Did he hear them much? Did they often remind him of merits of the Brendon Leonard and the local halfback talent?

"During a game it is funny," he said. "I do not hear anything, I am that focused and concentrating so hard.

"I don't hear too much unless it is near the end of a game and it is fairly close and you can hear people get in behind a team.

"But I seldom hear anything. I have always been like that for some reason. Often I get people asking me if I saw something or heard them and I've had no idea."

For chunks of this week, Cowan worked with Aaron Cruden running at first five-eighths while Daniel Carter rested his tender calf.

It was interesting, Cowan accepted, to ask whether he would have been swapped for the goalkicking Weepu if Cruden began the test.

He simply did not know but acknowledged kicking choices were more limited with Dagg's absence.

"If Dan goes off, I am not a reliable goalkicker so I don't know what happens. I know as much as you."

He was just concentrating on making his game suit the rule changes. The All Black selectors had been schooling him up, tweaking his game, sifting their ideas.

"I have changed my game from where it was two years ago. You always have to keep adjusting, otherwise you will be overtaken.

"It has taken me 12 games this year to really understand the rules, see how they can be applied and the concept of what a halfback can do. It is all about adjusting and adding to your tool kit," Cowan said.

Same with the All Blacks tonight. They needed to be in better harmony early on than they were at Carisbrook.

Cowan hoped the weather would clear because conditions at New Plymouth and Dunedin had been very good for the middle of winter.

He did not expect much difference from Wales.

"Both of us will tweak things. They like their blitz defence but they will not go away from their plan too much and if they do what they did in the first half at Dunedin they will take some positives out of that."