All Blacks: Mantra may be true at last

Benson Stanley took time out from rugby to complete a business management degree. Photo / Getty Images

Better people making better All Blacks became a mantra of ridicule when the World Cup campaign of 2007 ended in abject failure.

It was all too easy to mock the central plank of Graham Henry's regime when it appeared there was no substance to his belief that theatre-going All Blacks who could follow the plot of Macbeth were more likely to also follow the plot in knock-out World Cup games.

By extending their outside interests through study or hobbies, players would bring to the All Black table a more diverse and practical set of applicable skills.

The theory shouldn't be discounted as from the same box as the flat backline or left and right flanker experiment.

It's a mantra with merit - it was just that 2007 was too soon for the full benefits to have been felt. They are being felt now and it's the maturity and grounding of the personalities in this squad that makes these All Blacks a more robust and convincing unit than their predecessors.

This is a squad crammed with intelligence and professionalism. It is probably the most balanced in brawn and brain.

Deep into the professional age and the All Blacks have a squad that has rekindled memories of the amateur days where real people made it all the way.

Throughout the current squad there are engaging personalities - men who have gone beyond the play, train, rest, repeat culture.

It's the academic set which includes Anthony Boric, Victor Vito, Benson Stanley and Conrad Smith, that sets this squad apart.

These are the players who inspire confidence that under pressure, decision-making will not suffer. These are the players whose university achievements give the All Blacks a cerebral edge that has been absent in recent years.

Previous squads have contained more raw talent, more natural flair and explosive power. Yet they have been guilty of playing dumb football when it really matters.

There is no a guarantee the All Blacks of 2010 will avoid the same fate, but there is reason to be confident they will be more composed, less prone to panicking and more adept at figuring things out for themselves.

The selection of Stanley in particular is evidence that while everyone else might have given up with the better people making better All Blacks mantra, the coaching panel never did.

At 19, Stanley put his rugby career on hold to finish his education - to obtain a degree in business management.

"At that stage it was really important to me," he says. "I wasn't guaranteed anything in football. I was only in the academy training and the chances of making these sorts of teams ... sometimes it can come down to the bounce of the ball.

"You do all you can to control what you can but at the end of the day it comes down to having a little bit of luck that something will go your way.

"It was always really important to me to finish that work [degree] so I could absolutely give it my all and not worry about if something went wrong."

The benefits of that decision were plain to see when he made a composed and accomplished test debut last week, showing himself to be a mature and clever footballer who works a simple plan to the maximum.

The occasion was never going to overwhelm him and Stanley might just turn out to be extraordinarily difficult to drop when Ma'a Nonu returns.

Boric is another held in high regard by the coaching staff because, in addition to his aerial contribution and work-rate, he's a thinker. He's three papers away from completing his civil engineering degree and has no doubt that his academic study has pushed his All Black cause.

"I think it has," he says. "A degree is four years of being examined all the time like we are here. The coaches are always pushing us to be more pro-active to be more involved. They want us to run sessions, to give presentations to get involved - similar stuff to obtaining your degree."

In Vito, they have a thundering big lug who is most certainly not empty between the ears. He's a law graduate like Smith.

As well as the academics there are strong characters in Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Brad Thorn - possibly the three most professional men to ever wear the jersey.

New Zealand in the past has made the mistake of worshipping the false idol of rugby talent as if it alone was all that was needed to succeed. Better people making better All Blacks might yet prove to be valid.