Phil Gifford: The problem with the Sam Cane hysteria

Sam Cane of New Zealand during the Rugby World Cup 2019 Group B game between New Zealand and Namibia. Photo / Getty Images.

COMMENT:

Weeks before Sam Cane has even had the chance to lead out the All Blacks, the hounds are baying that he's not up to the job.

The idea that giving Cane the All Black captaincy is some sort of casual error is nonsense. But, if you believe everything that's written, coach Ian Foster and his selectors have picked as their leader a man who is, apparently, leading the Chiefs to destruction, making mental mistakes on defence, trying too hard and, in the most bizarre of the charges, not even the best No 7 at the Chiefs.

A lot of us have heard this sort of hysteria before. Richie McCaw, you may recall, was purportedly washed up before the 2015 World Cup and, at best, a cheat.

When McCaw was given a yellow card for a silly foot trip that left an Argentinian player completely uninjured in the All Blacks' opening game of the '15 Cup in England, the Fleet St stiletto gang were quick to pounce. Welsh writer Stephen Jones tweeted: "Loudest cheer of tournament from Cardiff fan zone as Richie McCaw carded. He has asked for 5000 other offences to be taken into consideration." Former Irish No 8 Neil Francis wrote that McCaw was such a cheat he "deserved to be in the bowels of Hell with demons sticking hot pokers up his arse."

If you really want to go back into the time tunnel for vituperation of a new All Black captain, look at 1958. When Wilson Whineray was made captain of the All Blacks there were questions about whether he had the ability as a prop to even be in the test side, let alone to lead it. It may be a tiny consolation to Cane supporters to note that by the time Whineray's test career was over in 1965 he was hailed as one of our most successful captains. Hell, later in his distinguished life he was even knighted.

It's worthwhile to consider why Cane was chosen as captain in the first place.

A despondent Captain Sam Cane (L) and Damian McKenzie of the Chiefs during the round 6 Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Chiefs and the Highlanders. Photo / Getty Images.

The first tick beside his name is simply that, in a sport where physical courage is prized even more by those on the field than those of us watching, our best captains have often been the hardest man in the team.

Tough? Think Buck Shelford silently staring into space in a changing shed in Nantes in 1986 while a doctor sews up his scrotum, split by a French boot. "He didn't need to say much in a game," Mike Brewer, an All Black captained by Shelford on two tours, has said, "you just had to look at what he was doing."

Think McCaw too. "He [McCaw] has got the biggest engine of anyone in rugby," longtime McCaw teammate Andy Ellis told me in 2011. "The size of his ticker is incredible. Nobody is more prepared to put his head in dark places."

Then consider a fascinating survey conducted by Sam Casey, a producer on NZME's Country Sports Breakfast radio show. Casey asked, on the promise of anonymity, 40 questions of more than 100 Super Rugby players.

One query was who they rated as the toughest New Zealand player. Cane got 41 per cent of the votes. Daylight was in second place and in third was Brodie Retallick on 18 per cent. Cane was also the most respected player.

Nobody can question the outstanding rugby Ardie Savea has been providing for the Hurricanes this season but it's at best naive, and at worst malicious, to suggest that Cane hasn't done enough in his 68 tests to prove his worth as a player at the highest level.

The Steve Hansen era contained virtually no poor selections. In fact, the only one that went badly wrong was dropping Cane for the semifinal against England at the World Cup last year.

Chiefs Sam Cane wanes to the fans during the round seven Super Rugby match between the Chiefs and the Hurricanes. Photo / Getty Images.

The theory looked reasonable. As Hansen explained to Cane, replacing him with Scott Barrett was aimed at attacking the English lineout. But the problem in the first 40 minutes in Yokohama was that England's offence was based on using their beefy brigade upfront to smash into the All Black lines. There is no better front-on defender in New Zealand rugby than Cane, and he was hugely missed. By the time he came on at the start of the second half the All Blacks were already down 10-0 and the game was gone.

Another tick for Cane as a successor to Kieran Read would surely have been the character Cane has shown since he was a teenager.

Ian Foster had his eye on him as far back as 2008, when Cane was still playing in the Reporoa First XV and Foster was coaching the Chiefs.

"We'd seen a lot of leadership qualities in him even though he was young," Foster told me in 2018. "I remember having [Cane] and [Cane's Reporoa schoolmate] Carl Axtens spending a week with the Chiefs in the pre-season stage when they were still at school, and we flagged them from there. Sam was always pretty self-reliant in how he went about preparing himself. He took responsibility for his own performance and there were leadership qualities we saw."

Just how Foster and his All Black selectors will juggle the loose forward trio will be one of many tough calls they'll have to make this year. In passing, sorting out the log jam of prospects for the back three is a genuine Gordian knot of rugby. How would you fit the Barrett brothers, Damian McKenzie, Rieko Ioane, Will Jordan, George Bridge, Sevu Reece, and Caleb Clarke into just three spots?

The best performance by the All Blacks in 2019 was the 23-13 win over South Africa in pool play, when they played Read at No 8 and had both Cane and Savea as flankers. Four good lineout jumpers is one more than a team really needs, so if a No 8 like Akira Ioane, safe hands on the jump, and two good ball-winning locks are selected, there isn't the need in lineouts for a giant No 6.

Nobody is a more dynamic runner with the ball than Savea, but nobody is a better scavenger and defender than Cane. There's no reason we can't have both.

Ultimately the real measure of Cane as an All Black captain will come when, fingers crossed, the All Blacks play against South Africa, Australia, and Argentina at the end of the year.

Will dissenting voices then matter? Hopefully not. In May, Cane told Martin Devlin on Newstalk ZB that "I've learnt over the years to take everything with a grain of salt, have a bit of a thick skin. The most important opinions are from close ones, the loved ones, teammates and coaches."

They're words to live by, and if All Black performances under Cane are good enough there'll be no need to form a hard shell against criticism anyway.