Rugby: The numbers don't add up

Jerome Kaino could spend much of the season playing No 8 for the Blues and No 6 for the All Blacks. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Modern rugby can be a baffling business - what with its indecipherable rules and near obsession with playing people out of position.

No other code suffers from such a damaging habit; this questionable logic of seeing, almost for the fun of experimenting, whether round pegs can be hammered into square holes.

Specialism is almost a dirty word in the current environment - as if being supremely good in just one position is some kind of failing in a player; a lack of ambition even.

There's also a convenience in shifting quality operators into different berths; it prevents a coach from having to make an honest assessment that he has not got his wider squad right.

Take the decision by Blues coach Pat Lam to play Jerome Kaino at No 8. It is easily explained as a positive for the team - a means of ensuring they have a world class player at the base of the scrum.

"I was always keen on him [Kaino] as an eight," said Lam. "Last year through our discussions, I said we would give him the best chance for the All Blacks at six because obviously Kieran Read is No1 there at No8. I wanted to give him his chance for the All Blacks and the World Cup.

"But this is about the Blues. He's keen at eight and he's a leader and he can be a strong leader at eight."

Yet he's a world class blindside and became world class only after finally being able to focus on being a blindside.

Kaino was typically industrious against the Crusaders on Friday, looking to make those doomsday hits of his close to the fringes and carry beyond the gainline. His eagerness was apparent. He collected Tyler Bleyendaal in one crunching swoop and would have probably had more impact if the Blues scrum wasn't being edged backwards.

"It's not as dramatic as people make it out to be," said Kaino of the positional shift. "The big difference is the back of the scrum but there are a lot of similarities at the lineout and in general play. It makes it hard to play when you are going up against a world class scrum like the Crusaders'."

Kaino was a perennial disappointment in his earlier career. He was shuffled between No 6 and No 8 at the Blues between 2005 and 2008 and suffered the same fate with the All Blacks.

In 2008, he played mostly at blindside for the Blues but was then picked at No 8 for the opening test of the year against Ireland, while regular Hurricanes No 8 Rodney So'oialo played at blindside in that test. It was no great surprise that neither shone in the 21-11 win.

Only at the end of 2009, after focusing exclusively at blindside, did Kaino cement his test position and it took until 2010 for him to become the consistent, destructive force he now is.

His attitude to training and preparing greatly improved in 2010 and that undoubtedly helped him. But being allowed to play in one position; learn his craft, the nuances of the position and develop an instinctive feel for it probably helped more.

That luxury is likely to be denied this season and Kaino will be taken back to the bad old days of swapping roles. It sounds as if he'll play the bulk of Super Rugby at No 8 and then have to revert to blindside for the All Blacks.

That raises the possibility of his form dropping - which will no doubt be attributed to some post-World Cup malaise by the coaching fraternity who tend to remain belligerently in denial about the effects of shuffling players across positions.

Kaino is by no means the only loose forward in New Zealand to have his development derailed by this desire to create amorphous back-rowers. Liam Messam, at times his own worst enemy, has also been hampered by the inability of coaches to see him in just one role. No one can say whether he's a No 8 or a blindside and there have been periodic attempts to even push him to openside where he has played several Super Rugby games.

A stunning ball player and a gifted athlete, Messam is New Zealand's most tragic case of unfulfilled potential and his under-performance at test level is too easily blamed on his supposed lack of size.

At 108kg, he has the explosive power and bulk to compete with the biggest and best and, while it is late in the piece, maybe something could yet be salvaged by allowing Messam to see out his career as just one thing; it doesn't matter whether it is at No 6 or No 8, just as long as he's allowed to specialise.

Adam Thomson is another who might have been allowed to focus on just one role. In 2009, he was arguably the best New Zealand blindside in Super Rugby but started the opening test of the year at openside.

He struggled before leaving the field with a broken hand and forwards coach Steve Hansen knew almost immediately it had been a mistake to ask Thomson to switch roles like that.

"We've got to be honest and say we've tried the odd thing from time to time that hasn't worked and that's probably one of them," Hansen said.

"We're desperately looking for someone that can back Rich [McCaw] up. That was a test match where we thought we'd give that a go. We thought he'd [Thomson] displayed a lot of the skills needed [for openside] but in fairness to him, he's gone back to six and he's telling us through his form that that's the position he should play in."

Strangely, less than two years later, Thomson was back playing openside in a test and has also been used at No 8.

In stark contrast and as the most compelling evidence that specialising works, McCaw has won three IRB Player of the Year titles and established himself as one of the greatest All Blacks. He wears only the No 7 jersey and, even at 31, with his body having been pounded for a decade, he's not keen on converting to the blindside or No 8.

"I still believe that I can play better and I think I can evolve as a No 7 too," he said last December. "I've always said I would do whatever's right for whatever team I'm in, but I do think my best position is seven. I can play the other ones and if I have to do that, I have to do that."

While Kieran Read is fit, there is no prospect of McCaw having to play at No 8 for either the Crusaders or All Blacks.

Read was seen as yet another versatile, generic loose forward when he made his mark in the 2008 Super 14. He was predominantly a blindside who could cover No 8 and openside and he was staring at a bit-part future when he broke into the All Blacks later that year.

That was until he used his cameo appearances in the 2009 Tri Nations to establish his credentials as a seriously good No 8. He had ousted the declining So'oialo by the end of the year and has been a No 8 since - deservedly named New Zealand's player of the year in 2010 and establishing himself as probably the world's best No8.

There are common skills relevant to all three back-row berths but it has been to New Zealand's detriment to see them as interchangeable.

Kaino is playing at No 8 for the Blues and potentially sacrificing his form and contribution at blindside for the All Blacks later in the season, because there is a lack of faith in the other No 8 prospects.

Brad Mika lacks the mobility and aerobic engine; Chris Lowrey brings work-rate and passion but is prone to losing the ball in contact, while Peter Saili'i showed himself last season to be a 90 per cent player - mostly good but suffering from the unfortunate ability to make key errors at key times that come with a big cost.