Richie Mo'unga and Damian McKenzie. Photos / Photosport
Richie Mo'unga and Damian McKenzie. Photos / Photosport
It appears to be almost certain that Crusaders No10 Richie Mo'unga will be involved in his first test for the All Blacks next Saturday; the question is, will he start in Dunedin or will he be on the reserves bench?
The conventional wisdom is that in the absence of BeaudenBarrett the All Blacks would turn to Mo'unga as the man to navigate them around the field from the start of an international, but it's probably not that clear-cut this week as Steve Hansen's men seek a clean-sweep against France with a win in the third test in Dunedin.
It might be that if Barrett is ruled out with concussion suffered when he fell horribly on to his head and neck area in the scratchy 26-13 second-test win in Wellington that Damian McKenzie is given the No10 jersey at Forsyth Barr Stadium, with Mo'unga set for a role on the reserves bench.
McKenzie didn't get everything right at Westpac Stadium after moving from the bench to the drivers' seat after only 12 minutes but neither did the team as a whole.
They were especially unstructured in the second half and didn't play with a lot of composure but that was probably a combination of things including Sam Whitelock's relative inexperience as captain, the way the French hung tough so impressively, and the fact many of the big men were fatigued from their efforts in the first test at Eden Park.
Richie Mo'unga during an All Blacks training session at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport
Hansen has made it clear he wants to build depth this week and have a good look at the rest of his squad, but moving McKenzie, rather than Mo'unga to No10 would be a vote of confidence and allow him to find his feet in a demanding and high-pressure position. The little Chiefs playmaker, who has played 13 tests, is ostensibly the All Blacks' No2 first-five, so what better chance to find his feet further than to start a test?
After Hansen said it was unlikely that Barrett would be available in the deep south, even if he was 100 per cent recovered from his symptoms, he was asked about what he would like to see from McKenzie and his answer was potentially significant.
"It's not so much what I'd like to see from Damian," he said. "I'd like to see a platform that he could then work off. It would be very easy to blame Damian for what was a poor performance from the whole team and that's not the case. What we've got to work out is how did we go as coaches during the week – what did we miss? Did we get the selections right?
"You look at the first five minutes of the game and it's not pretty, we made a lot of mistakes and then what was our attitude when the red card came? Did we think we were going to find space and score tries? They are all learning experiences and we have to make sure we nail them so we can get better."
The 24-year-old Mo'unga is a specialist No10, whereas McKenzie, 23, can cover first-five or fullback or even halfback as we saw in the second half in Wellington when TJ Perenara was in the sinbin. The Crusaders player's relative lack of versatility could, however, be mitigated by a reshuffle that sees Ben Smith move back to fullback, Waisake Naholo brought on to the right wing, and the extremely adaptable Jordie Barrett named on the bench.
Either way, it will be a highly-anticipated team selection this week, with Sonny Bill Williams likely to be named after his recovery from knee surgery. Hansen said the selectors probably erred in named an unchanging 23 after a torrid first test. There's no chance of that happening this week.
