Former All Blacks scrum-half Justin Marshall wants Scott Robertson to be bold with his selection at fly-half with Beauden Barrett sidelined.
Barrett sustained a shoulder injury in New Zealand’s victory over the Wallabies at Eden Park last weekend and has not travelled to Australia for the final round of the Rugby Championship.
Damian McKenzie is the frontrunner to fill the void at number 10, but Marshall wants the Chiefs playmaker to remain on the bench with Ruben Love favoured instead.
Love or McKenzie at fly-half?
Love has played a lot of his professional rugby at full-back, but is a fly-half by trade and is yet to get a run in the position for the All Blacks.
Marshall debated who should fill the number 10 jersey with former Wallabies hooker Jeremy Paul on the Good, Bad and Rugby AUNZ Podcast.
“I’d have him on the bench, Damian McKenzie has got to start,” Paul stated.
“You have to continue with what you’ve started with, but then have a subtle difference.”
Marshall disagreed, arguing that the All Blacks know what they have in McKenzie and could use this game as an opportunity to see Love performs in the role.
“I’d go the other way,” he began.
“You know what you’ve got with Damian McKenzie, he is going to give you that every week. If you put Damian on the bench, like they did at the weekend, and he comes on after 30 minutes for Beauden or Ruben Love, every other player can play across the backline – it will slot in with exactly what you know.
“What you don’t know is what Ruben Love can bring in terms of how he triggers the backline, how flat he plays, and what he offers the defence in what he offers differently.
“It enables us to evolve as a backline, but you’re not changing it majorly because you have got that backstop in McKenzie off the bench.”
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Conservative Razor
That selection would send the wrong message to the ground, according to Paul, as the hooker believes that Robertson has stuck to a pecking order policy and hasn’t been as brazen in his selections as the likes of Joe Schmidt and Rassie Erasmus.
“I would start DMac because again, it is the other players within the squad in terms of selection policy,” the 48-year-old added.
“So other players are going to turn around and go, ‘What other players are going to be coming in and leapfrog me? I’m going to take this deal in Japan now – I can see the writing on the wall.’”
Marshall retorted: “But you argued that Australia are where they are now because they have had 17 players come in and debut for the team over a period of time, but you don’t want us (All Blacks) to do that, you want us to go back to players that we already know?”
Defending his position, Paul again argued that Robertson has been more subtle with his new additions to the squad and having been in the position for 18 months already, he is too far along in his tenure to make bold selections like giving Love the starting role.
“Hold on, you guys are in a transition without the selection. You haven’t shown the courageousness that Joe Schmidt showed in playing 17 new players in one season,” he said.
“I believe that you have gone too far now. Razor started last year, and that’s when he should have made those selections. However, he is now 18 months into it… But I would make subtle changes, not the 17 in one season. There are a couple there that I would make with existing players, but why isn’t the bench being used better in the professional era?”
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