Gregor Paul: All Blacks halfback squeeze will be as tight as ever

It was a hard enough business for the All Blacks picking their 33-man squad, but the really big calls will come this week when they have to name their team to start against Samoa.

The squeeze will be on in different areas, but none more so than at halfback where a decision is going to have to be made whether to revert to starting Aaron Smith or to continue with TJ Perenara as the man who wears the No 9 jersey.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has given no indication of how he's thinking, although he has always contended that Smith is, in his view, the best halfback in the world.

If anyone truly feels they have to have the definitive answer on this ahead of the team being picked on Thursday, best guess is that Smith will start, with Perenara on the bench.

The latter is effectively the incumbent, having started the last test of 2016 against France with Smith on the bench. Perenara's elevation was a significant moment.

He won his place on form - having delivered a consistent number of test performances in the back half of the season. It reached the point in Paris where the selectors had to reward Perenara especially as Smith's form had fallen away.

Or rather, Smith's form had never recovered from being left out of the team for three tests before the end of year tour after an off field issue. Smith's confidence was shot by November and he wasn't the same player or the same person as a result of the media spotlight his personal life had been put under.

Here we are now seven months on and the picture has changed again. Smith has put his off field troubles behind him and while he wasn't as consistent as he would have liked with the Highlanders, he was largely back somewhere near his best and delivered at least three genuinely top-notch performances.

His fitness looks good, his passing is accurate as ever and he's been making good decisions. It has maybe not been vintage Smith, but it's not been so far away either and besides, he's often in the past been one of those players whose performance lifts considerably when he plays for the All Blacks.

His case to be restored to the starting role is strong, but then so, too, is Perenara's claim to keep it.

The Hurricanes halfback has continued from where he left off at the end of last year. He talked in November 2016 about his breakthrough moment - which came in June when he was initially left out of the All Blacks squad, only earning a reprieve because Tawera Kerr-Barlow was injured.

It dawned on him that he had to adapt his game to the team for whom he is playing.

"The one that I play at the Canes is different and that is what I had struggled with at previous times with the All Blacks," he said.

"I was still trying to play a certain gameplan that wasn't our gameplan so trying to transition into an All Blacks role and then transition back into the Canes is something I am trying to get better at.

"I think the main thing for me was that I was defined about it. I thought the way I play can suit any gameplan and that is something I didn't understand. I didn't understand myself and my role enough and I feel like the older I get the more I understand that my style of play needs to work in with the gameplan instead of the gameplan working with my style of play."

With that all clear in his head, Perenara has been good with the Hurricanes this year and the question for the selectors is whether Smith has done enough to surpass him?

The answer to that will come on Thursday but probably we already know...Smith will be restored to the starting team.