Damian McKenzie and Shaun Stevenson speak about this week's All Blacks squad selection for the second Bledisloe test match.
Video / George Heard
OPINION:
The greatest locking partnership New Zealand has produced, and probably the world has known, will play together on home soil for the last time this Saturday.
So too will the country’s best halfback in history play his last test in New Zealand.
The All Blacks, in theirever-functional, obsessively task-focused way, have pooh-poohed any notion this test will carry deeper significance given the impending farewells, but for those with a broader emotional range, this weekend should be treated as a landmark occasion.
Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock and Aaron Smith meet the criteria to be considered great players. They have done enough already for their stories to stand the test of time: for history to mark them as among the best the game has ever known, and it would be remiss to not be aware that their last outing in front of their own people is something to consciously celebrate.
If nothing else, Bledisloe two signals that the countdown to the end has begun for these players – that the moment is getting nearer when they will each respectively play their last test and leave enormous holes in the All Blacks.
Smith, who will feature from the bench, has built a legacy that will continue to be felt long after his boots are hung up.
Few, if any players, have brought such an extraordinary skill-set as to completely redefine selection templates.
But this is what Smith did in 2012 when he showed, with the Highlanders, that the length and accuracy of his pass, and his ability to get to almost every breakdown, was an absolute game-changer.
All Blacks locks Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick during a training session. Photo / Photosport
The newly installed All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen and his assistant Ian Foster saw their chance to inject a player into their team who would enable them to play at the pace and with the width that they felt their triple-threat attack game needed.
Such was Smith’s impact in speeding up the All Blacks attack, it led to a nationwide and then global re-think about the preferred body shapes for halfbacks.
From going through a phase of wanting the halfback to be an auxiliary loose forward, international rugby teams starting picking smaller, faster more dynamic ball players at No 9, and the greatest tribute to Smith on Saturday will perhaps be the presence of the equally small and nimble Tate McDermott in the Wallabies No 9 jersey for the Wallabies.
Smith started a revolution and at the World Cup, there will be an army of small, fast, passing halfbacks such as the brilliant French captain Anthoine Dupont, as well as Jamison Gibson-Park from Ireland and Faf de Klerk of South Africa.
Smith may only play 20 minutes or so in Dunedin, but they will be an important 20 minutes for a nation to acknowledge.
Just as it is important to take the time to appreciate that two giants of the game – literal and metaphorical – will be thundering around the Forsyth Barr Stadium, terrorising and intimidating the Wallabies in a way that only they can.
Much of what Retallick and Whitelock do will be real: shifting bodies at the breakdown, smashing into collisions, winning lineout ball. The Wallabies will feel their presence.
Brodie Retallick and Scott Barrett will continue their lock combination. Photo / Getty
But equally, much of the effectiveness will come from the power of the legend, because Retallick and Whitelock, after 11 years together and 64 tests, is a duo that inflicts as much mental damage as it does physical.
They live inside the heads of their opposition as much as they roam freely on whatever park they are let loose and that’s the value of having produced brilliant performances for more than a decade.
These two are an institution – a pairing that opponents take one look at and go a little weak at the knees, because they have never given an inch at any time in their illustrious careers and in those big pressure moments, both of them have shown they won’t crack.
They have been the archetypal modern pairing – tall enough to be world-class lineout forwards, light enough to be lifted and yet heavy enough to clear things out the way.
While Whitelock leans more to the lineout, Retallick has been the best ball-carrying lock in the world game almost from his first test, and while they both bring total skill-sets, they are neatly complementary in that the best component parts of their respective games are different.
Their fellow lock Scott Barrett has emerged strongly this year to surpass them in form and impact and change the guard early as it were.
But that doesn’t alter the significance of Saturday and the importance of taking the team to appreciate the enormous contribution and historic footprint Retallick and Whitelock have made.
The All Blacks are determined to not let the occasion become emotional, but it should be for everyone else.
