All Blacks coach Ian Foster has stuck with the same starting XV that lost to the Pumas. Photo / Photosport
All Blacks coach Ian Foster has stuck with the same starting XV that lost to the Pumas. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
There are, depending on what arrangements are struck next year, 12 tests left before the All Blacks kick-off their 2023 World Cup campaign against France.
And now that Ian Foster has, for the second week in succession, picked the same starting team, it would seem that he is startingto think that the XV starting in Hamilton this Saturday may look a lot like the XV that starts in Paris next year.
Time is running out to rip up the combinations he's been using in recent weeks. The window to make changes and rebuild a different midfield or back row has all but closed.
This is starting to feel like the selectors' minds are all but made up about the key personnel and the positions they will play and given that the World Cup is only a year away, that stacks as a good thing.
That's how the World Cup cycle should work – the first two years are about finding new players, exposing them to test rugby and working through different ideas and combinations.
Year three is the time to start settling on the best team and certainly the second half has historically been when the All Blacks have tried to refine and polish their work by consistently picking the same players.
Foster, whose first two years were badly impacted by Covid, is now following the tried and trusted formula. That's three successive tests that the All Blacks have fielded the same starting XV and it may be now there are only a couple of positions still open for debate.
Brodie Retallick this week is on the bench but he may not stay there once he's rebuilt his game time and rediscovered his match sharpness after yet another lengthy injury layoff. But with Scott Barrett in such good form what we may see is Foster rotate his locks a little more than he has in terms of who starts and who is on the bench.
Brodie Retallick makes his All Blacks return from injury on the bench. Photo / Photosport
The fact Barrett can also play at blindside creates another option of he and Shannon Frizell sharing the workload there depending on the opposition.
What happens with Beauden Barrett once he too rebuilds his game time after a neck injury is the only other real unknown.
To date, Foster has been reluctant to commit long-term to either Barrett or Richie Mo'unga as his preferred No 10 but the time has surely come when he has to.
Mo'unga will be starting for the third week in succession and if he nails a quality performance, it feels like that should be enough for him to stay in the position until the World Cup.
Barrett is a great influencer off the bench and while he won't love being recast as a super sub, for now it feels like it's the right role for him.
The only other player to consider for the World Cup is Anton Lienert-Brown. He's due back at the end of the year and the versatile midfielder has always, like Barrett, been a great impact player.
But the bigger question in all this is whether Foster has got his combinations right?
He's doing the right thing by sticking to his beliefs, but with the World Cup only a year away, it still doesn't feel like Rieko Ioane is an international centre.
A world class wing, yes: but centre still doesn't feel like the role for him. His distribution remains too much of a work in progress to be confident he'll play others into space.
Will Jordan's confidence seems to be dipping as a result of only being infrequently involved from the wing and while he has work to do on his defensive qualities, there is an argument that playing him at fullback where he would be more directly involved in the game is the best way to build his confidence under the high ball and have him more involved in the attack.
Will Jordan competes for a high ball against Argentina. Photo / Photosport
Jordie Barrett has never hidden his desire to play at second-five and with his kicking game, size and crushing defence, it would have been interesting to see what he could have achieved there had he been backed in the role earlier this year.
And then there is the loose trio, which still doesn't feel like it is the right combination, primarily because it features two opensides in Ardie Savea and Sam Cane.
The All Blacks have missed the chance to develop a specialist No 8 – someone with genuine size, physical presence and athleticism to create more options for the loose trio set-up - and with the clock ticking down, are probably now wedded to the Frizell/Barrett, Savea, Cane combination.
And all this leads to the biggest question of all – which is, are we looking at a team that can build from here to become world champions?
That's a question that will be easier to answer once we see whether we are looking at a team that can beat Argentina.
