Editorial: High quality of players makes for tough calls

Quade Cooper of the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images

Editorial

An embarrassment of rugby riches means All Blacks selectors will be forced to leave talented people behind.

All eyes in the rugby world have turned to the selection of squads for the World Cup. Each major contender has a quandary or two.

England, for example, has had to decide whether to pick Sam Burgess, a largely untried league convert. Australia had to work out what to do with the erratic Quade Cooper.

Both represent a considerable risk in the white-hot environment of World Cup knockout play. No one, however, has had as many difficult choices to make as New Zealand.

When the All Blacks squad is announced tomorrow, this country's embarrassment of riches will be starkly apparent. It is a wonderful place to be. But it means some players of high quality - Liam Messam, Cory Jane, Colin Slade and Israel Dagg have been widely discussed - will not be on the plane to London. Yet each of these has turned in memorable and match-turning performances at either the last World Cup or in subsequent internationals. Most would walk into any other country's squad.

The 31 players will be announced at a Beehive function. Such a venue can only heighten already high expectations - and bring to mind other examples of grandiloquent gestures that preceded failed campaigns.

There is much, however, to suggest that things will be different this time.

The All Blacks are the dominant team in world rugby and will field a side that blends players from the 2011 triumph with talented new blood.

Above all, they know from bitter experience that absolutely nothing can be taken for granted.