"We said right at the beginning that we knew as much as we needed to about Liam and there was no point in bringing him into the camp," Hansen said of the reasoning behind putting Messam on standby. "We wanted to learn about Luke and young Brad Shields because we didn't know anything about them and both are quality young men.
"We also said we would bring people in outside of that 35. Liam has had a very good season. He's been very consistent. He deserves his opportunity if he gets one."
For his part, Vito was attempting to put his disappointment at being ruled out of the game for up to five weeks to one side for the good of the team.
"I can't lie, it's pretty gutting but at the end of the day I can only take hold of the controllables and that's look after my recovery and have a really good attitude about doing what I can to get back as soon as and just help the team where I can," he said.
Vito, looking to make the blindside flanker position his own in the absence of Jerome Kaino, left the Eden Park field with blood streaming from his head after a collision with Ireland centre Brian O'Driscoll.
It was after his head had been attended to that the extent of his knee injury became known.
"The blood was a good excuse to come off but they reassessed and saw that my knee wasn't quite right either so it was probably the right call to stay off the field, and especially with the results that have come out."
On the day it emerged Messam was still in the All Black frame he was up early for a Crossfit gym session and a run with his mates on the rubbish round, something he occasionally does for fitness. "Now it's time to make Hamilton beautiful and get on that rubbish truck," he tweeted merrily.
On the hunt for black bin bags, the sniff of a black jersey would have put an extra spring in his step.
