By WYNNE GRAY
Openside flanker
Age: 26
Height: 1.85m
Weight: 98kg
NPC team: Waikato
Super 12: Chiefs
Super 12 games: 33
Test debut: 2001
Test caps: 17
At Twickenham and Stade de France last year, Marty Holah was sensational.
His play was so impressive the local scribes wondered just how he could not
be the premier openside flanker in New Zealand.
It must have been equally as difficult for Holah to dismiss his work and explain about a special bloke called McCaw.
But the 27-year-old used equal dollops of good grace and dignity to deflect his questioners as he told how he was the locum All Black breakaway, the real McCaw was resting.
If England rugby watchers were not so sure, they got an eyeful in Wellington this year when Richie McCaw showed up the limitations of his ageing opposite Neil Back, just as Holah had done to a different England grouping last year.
Holah has shown a range of outstanding skills, honed on the sevens circuit and transplanted to the longer game, where he is the sole Waikato representative in the World Cup squad. All Black No 999 wore black first in 2001 but had to deputise as openside flanker for most of that season to Taine Randell.
New All Blacks coaches John Mitchell and Robbie Deans corrected that when they took away their first side later that year with McCaw and Holah.
There was one unusual but brief look at the Highlanders' Sam Harding and Daniel Braid has been fingered as the next-best flanker in this country.
But McCaw and Holah remain the head honchos.
In that murky area of the game called the tackled ball zone, Holah is in his rugby heaven.
Chunky, strong and well-balanced, he filches turnovers which, in these days of strong defence, have become the most potent attacking weapon.
Either that or Holah forces sides to concede penalties.
Away from that core business, Holah is a handy link player in open-play.
