Rugby World Cup: How well placed are the All Blacks for 2016?

The All Blacks during the national anthem at the start of the Rugby World Cup Final in Twickenham Stadium, London. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

Such is the relentless expectation imposed on the All Blacks, that 24 hours after reclaiming the Webb Ellis Cup, questions were already coming about their readiness for 2016.

The golden generation have done their dash and clearly, the loss of Richie McCaw, Daniel Carter, Keven Mealamu, Tony Woodcock, Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith is going to hurt. Between them, they have in excess of 700 test caps.

And nor is it just experience that they have been bringing in recent weeks. All of them, in varying degrees, have made telling contributions to the All Blacks World Cup campaign.

The hole they will leave is not going to be easily filled and yet the All Blacks, like they had to do in 2012, will have to take stock of who is out there and where their next generation of talent can be found.

The All Blacks don't do rebuilding. The show must go on with them - their growth has to be seamless and the team must regenerate without long periods of under performance.

How well placed are they to do that? Assistant coach Ian Foster, who has signed on for another two years, is reasonably confident the overall picture is bright and cause for optimism.

"When you look at the planning there is still a large part of the playing group that will be eyeing that [next year] as well and that holds us in pretty good standing," he said.

"From a selection mechanism we have tried hard to keep the team rejuvenated and some of that has been from natural attrition. What we have is what the Northern Hemisphere teams don't have which is we lose our players to the Northern Hemisphere clubs and that forces a regular change of the guard.

"But we work hard to understand who is underneath in terms of the age group and franchises and we have an ITM Cup and franchise system that does a very good job in developing players. So it is not just about the top of the tree with the All Blacks - it is about all we have done underneath that."

Some of the holes that will appear already have strong candidates. Joe Moody is poised to be a long term replacement for Woodcock. Aaron Cruden and Beauden Barrett are keen on Carter's jersey as is Lima Sopoaga; Malakai Fekitoa could be the new Nonu or new Smith and Waisake Naholo has a huge upside to go into the back three pool with Nehe Milner-Skudder.

The challenge will be to dig a bit deeper in 2016 much as the selectors did in 2012. That year they had to find a handful of new players to replace a group of senior men who had departed after the last World Cup.

It was a relatively big turnover and the selectors opted to mostly introduce relatively unknown, younger players to add some vibrancy to the mix.

That was the year Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane, Aaron Smith and Julian Savea were introduced.

"We go back into a bit of an information gathering phase to look at who is coming through," says Foster about how they handle the first half of next year. "We will keep an eye on the Under-20s and Super Rugby to see how the jigsaw comes together.

"If you look at 2011 to 2012 we changed about 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the team very quickly. To the point we have arrived at this World Cup with I think it was 15 of the 31 who played at the last World Cup. If you keep that sort of mix percentage then you get a really nice balance of experienced guys but you also get an influx of youth and enthusiasm.

"And also those players bring something to the stage that the opposition haven't seen before and perhaps Nehe [Milner-Skudder] is a classic example."

2015 Rugby World Cup squad
Richie McCaw - Expected to retire
Dan Carter - Racing Metro (France)
Ma'a Nonu - Toulon (France)
Conrad Smith - Pau (France)
Tony Woodcock - Retired
Keven Mealamu - Retired
Colin Slade - Pau (France)
Dane Coles - Re-signed until 2019
Julian Savea - 2019
Brodie Retallick - 2019
Jerome Kaino - 2018
Wyatt Crockett - 2018
Kieran Read - 2017
Owen Franks - 2017
Ben Smith - 2017
Malakai Fekitoa - 2017
Sam Whitelock - 2017
Charlie Faumuina - 2017
Ben Franks - 2017
Sam Cane - 2017
Aaron Smith - 2016
Beauden Barrett - 2016
Luka Romano - 2016
Sonny Bill Williams - 2016 - Sevens
TJ Perenara - 2016
Codie Taylor - 2016
Pauliasi Manu - 2016
Liam Messam - 2016 - Sevens
Joe Moody - 2016
Victor Vito - 2016
Tawera Kerr-Barlow - 2016
Nehe Milner-Skudder - 2016