(L-R) Ethan de Groot, Samisoni Taukei'aho and Will Jordan sing the national anthem ahead of the International Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Fiji. Photo / Getty Images.
(L-R) Ethan de Groot, Samisoni Taukei'aho and Will Jordan sing the national anthem ahead of the International Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Fiji. Photo / Getty Images.
OPINION:
The experimental label has been slapped on the All Blacks side picked to face the USA, the consensus being this is a team focused on the future.
Mostly that is true, but so too is there a strong hint of the present and a few players, maybe more, pickedfor the test in Maryland will be given a constant, maybe even heavy workload when they move on to Europe to play Wales, Italy, Ireland and France.
Ethan de Groot, the young Highlanders prop who battled with a neck injury which prevented him from winning any game time during the Rugby Championship, is perhaps the one to put the tracking device on these next few weeks.
The 23-year-old began the season as a rank outsider – arriving at the Highlanders without the base conditioning or technical refinement of his peer group who had emerged through the Super Rugby academy route.
De Groot had made it there via the more traditional and perhaps forgotten path of club and provincial rugby – maybe not as fit or as polished as others, but certainly more rugged and with an old school devotion to collisions and a simple, clear philosophy that he was there to win them.
The more he played in Super Rugby, the more he was noticed because he brought a persistent desire to impose himself with or without the ball and it was his dynamism and attitude that won him All Blacks selection – the selectors unanimous that if they got their hands on him, they could quickly alter his body composition and fast-track his technical work at the set-piece.
And that is exactly what they have been able to do in the last eight weeks while they were in Australia.
De Groot didn't fix his neck in time to play against the Pumas, but he did manage to power through the training, jump his strength and conditioning and impress the coaching team with the advancement he made in his scrummaging.
He came into the squad as cover for Joe Moody and on that basis was deemed to be well down the pecking order. While that may have been the case back in August, it's possibly not now because De Groot has built the strength and aerobic base from which he can better utilise his core skills of carrying and tackling and also up his high work rate around the ball.
These are qualities that many of his more experienced propping rivals are not delivering enough of and Foster hasn't forgotten that the last time the All Blacks were in Europe in late 2018, their front-rowers were exposed as lacking the same all-round dynamism and general contribution of their Irish and English equivalents.
Ethan de Groot warms up ahead of the Rugby Championship match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Argentina Pumas. Photo / Getty Images.
De Groot may be the youngest and least experienced of the eight props with the All Blacks and the last one to have been picked – but there is a feeling he could force his way into selection contention for the bigger games coming against France and Ireland.
Just as Tupou Vaa'i is likely to become a player of significance on this tour – ranking as he does as the third most experienced lock in the group after Scott Barrett and Patrick Tuipulotu both returned to New Zealand.
Vaa'i, similar to de Groot, started last year as a total unknown who didn't even have a Super Rugby contract.
But unlike de Groot, Vaa'i had come through the age-grade system and had impressed the All Blacks coaching staff with his performances for the New Zealand Under-20 team at the 2019 Junior World Championship.
It may seem that Vaa'I has emerged from nowhere, but he was a player destined to make it to the test arena, just perhaps not as soon as he did.
But, again, like De Groot, the selectors have seen a quality about him that belies his youth and inexperience and internally the expectations for Vaa'i are most likely higher than they are externally, which is why he's likely to play in all five upcoming tests.
Braydon Ennor is the other less known player potentially going to blossom on this North American and European leg.
He's had an incredible run of bad luck – a serious knee injury in 2020 and an appendicitis earlier this year – which has derailed the progress he was making in 2019, when he won his first cap after two strong seasons of Super Rugby with the Crusaders.
A centre who is just at home on the wing, Ennor is genuinely quick, smart in his positioning and neat with his distribution.
He's another who rarely featured in the Rugby Championship but he's regained his sharpness through the intensity of the All Blacks' training and given that no other midfielder has yet made an indisputable case, the door is open for Ennor to stake his claim.
All Blacks team: Damian McKenzie, Will Jordan, Braydon Ennor, Quinn Tupaea, George Bridge, Richie Mo'unga, Finlay Christie; Hoskins Sotutu, Dalton Papalii, Luke Jacobson, Tupou Vaa'i, Sam Whitelock (captain), Angus Ta'avao, Asafo Aumua, Ethan de Groot. Reserves: Dane Coles, George Bower, Tyrel Lomax, Josh Lord, Sam Cane, T.J. Perenara, Beauden Barrett, Anton Lienert-Brown.
