Gregor Paul: All Blacks taking risk with squad selections

All Blacks 1st-five Beauden Barrett during the Rugby Championship test match between the All Blacks and South Africa. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

It's hard to gauge the scale, but there is no question the All Blacks are taking a risk with the squad they have picked for the test in Argentina.

It is a calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless. They have told Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane, Liam Squire, Beauden Barrett and Ryan Crotty to park up for the week, rest, recover, recondition and then rejoin the squad in South Africa.

This isn't a return to the days of 2005 and 2006 when the All Blacks rotated their personnel en masse from week to week, famously picking one starting team against Wales on their Grand Slam tour and then a totally different one the following week to play Ireland.

It is, no question, a rotation policy, but not one that will be sustained beyond the next two weeks. All Blacks coach Steve Hansen is taking a short term risk - picking what will inevitably be a young and inexperienced side to play the Pumas - for long term gain - having the core of his senior leadership team and first choice players still full of energy come the last weeks of the season.

Based on what the Pumas have produced so far in the Rugby Championship, the risk Hansen is taking wouldn't appear to be major.

The Pumas have played four, lost four and not quite found a style that suits their obvious strengths. But the danger of course is that they are a different team when they play at home.

They had good patches against both the All Blacks and Wallabies in recent weeks and if they can do more to build on those next week, capitalise on chances when they make them and get the scoreboard working for them early, they could suddenly become a handful.

Look at the players who will be on the plane to Buenos Aires and regardless of the make up of the match day 23, it is going to be a youthful All Blacks team, light on experience that is picked to play the Pumas.

There are four props who have less than 20 caps between them.

Lima Sopoaga is clearly going to start at first-five, Ngani Laumape is presumably going to reappear in the midfield, probably alongside Anton Lienert-Brown and contained within their five options to fill the back three places, they have a total of 35 caps.

What will make everyone wary is that the last time the All Blacks went into a test without either Whitelock or Retallick, they lost. That was against Ireland in Chicago when the two locking stalwarts were both injured and Patrick Tuipulotu, who has been recalled, started alongside Jerome Kaino, another to be brought back in after his personal issues.

The combination didn't work in the USA and highlighted how reliant the All Blacks had become on Whitelock and Retallick.

But that discovery in Chicago is partly what this trip to Argentina is all about - it is an opportunity to grow alternatives to the senior locking pair. It is an opportunity to put a younger group under pressure, ask them to own their preparation and take on a tricky opponent in a demanding venue.

The All Blacks need greater depth in some positions and there is no better way to build it than to throw players into battle.

Risky, yes, but then what better way to fast track the likes of Scott Barrett, Luke Romano and Tuipulotu, by asking them to front against a bruising pack in a hostile environment?

What better way to build Sopoaga's confidence and belief than to ask him to direct the team against an opponent that is quite definitely not orthodox or predictable?

Hansen has faith that the risk is justified - that with the likes of Dane Coles, Kieran Read, Kaino, Aaron Smith and Sonny Bill Williams featuring somewhere in the mix - there are enough steadying hands and calm voices to ensure panic doesn't break out.

He also feels that it is better to take a risk against Argentina in September than it is to take a risk in November.

Rest Retallick, Whitelock, Cane, Squire, Barrett and Crotty now and the reward is that they should still be fresh and enthused when the All Blacks need them in November when they play France, Scotland and Wales in consecutive weeks.

Rotation hasn't been popular in the past, but this is rotation-lite and a one-off where Hansen is confident that the end will justify the means.