Justin Marshall: Fekitoa in natural home at 13

Fekitoa has a very good ability to read that outside channel. He comes up quickly and snuffs out players. Photo / Supplied

There are plenty of selections to be debated this week but for me the most pleasing of all is the selection of Malakai Fekitoa at centre.

He has been used more at second-five recently - the last time he played at centre was against the Wallabies in Sydney in August.

There's no doubt midfielders can swap positions - second-five Ryan Crotty is a classic example of that, and I believe Fekitoa can play well at No12 too, but from what I've seen of the way he plays, and in particular defends, he has more of an ability to play at centre.

When you play at No12 defensively your vision turns you on the inside more, because there is more traffic and you have to think about how the opposition backs are set. The channel between halfback and the outside shoulder of the second-five is a dangerous one, where wings, fullbacks and loose forwards also operate. As a No12 you have to be very aware of those players injecting themselves into that zone.

At centre you start slightly behind your No12 and from there you don't have the amount of traffic coming in at a different angle. You can start tight and keep your vision to the outside.

Fekitoa has a very good ability to read that outside channel. He comes up quickly and snuffs out players. In Brisbane against the Wallabies he came up hard at No12 and the line got too disjointed.

The other thing about playing No12 is there is more of a responsibility to run straighter and different angles which he does very well because he is a strong, powerful attacking weapon and he breaks tackles. But his strength is the outside break. He has good speed off the mark and, if the work is done on the inside, if you have a centre with an outside break with power and speed it opens up the backline more in terms of being difficult to defend.

Over the last few weeks the All Blacks have lacked fluency in getting wings into the game, or even on the outside channel. (Let's take the USA out of the equation). In the last three big tests, the back three haven't got the ball with time and space to spare. Last week they got cut off by England.

With Fekitoa at centre this will be more easily achieved because of his ball carrying ability and footwork and speed.

Incidentally, I think Colin Slade will swap with Ben Smith a bit between the right wing and fullback positions.

Fekitoa is a real talent but he can realise that talent more in the No13 jersey.