IT'S NOT very often that Scotland's loss is the All Blacks' gain, but by allowing Aussie kicking coach Mick "The Kick" Byrne to go south, the men at Murrayfield have given the crowd from the Land of the Long White Cloud a little-needed helping hand.
More specifically, they have helped enhance the fortunes of the young stand-off who looks likely to lock horns with Scotland in Edinburgh next Saturday.
Stephen Donald has long been seen as something special in New Zealand rugby, yet the Waikato fly-half has struggled with his kicking game and had developed an unnerving habit of getting his kicks from hand charged down. Which is where Byrne comes in.
"Mick has turned Donald into a bloody good kicker," said All Blacks backs coach Wayne Smith. "He hasn't changed his style but he's quickened it up. From hand to foot he's quicker and he doesn't get the charge downs he used to." The problems with his kicking were, said the former Northampton Saints coach, one of the main reasons why Donald hasn't emerged earlier.
Byrne's intervention has prompted Graham Henry to move Daniel Carter to inside centre and given him another option at fly-half. The 25-year-old pivot, who made his first Test start last week, has what Graham Henry and every other Kiwi pundit seeking a handy cliché now refer to as "the X-factor". In English, that means he has an ability to do something outrageous that can turn a game, which is one of the main reasons why he was brought off the bench with 30 minutes to play in the deciding Bledisloe Cup Test at Suncorp Stadium with the All Blacks 17-7 down and facing disaster.
It worked, too, with New Zealand running out 28-24 winners, which is one of the reasons why he was given a start in the fourth Bledisloe Cup Test in Hong Kong last week, and why sources inside the New Zealand camp expect him to start against Scotland next week.
Yet if Henry is playing Donald, it's also partly because he has little choice. Carter's regular understudy, Nick Evans, couldn't see a way past the golden one and is now at Harlequins where he is unavailable to the All Blacks. Ditto Luke McAlister at Sale Sharks and Ben Blair at Cardiff, two players with the talent to have moved into the first five-eighths berth if necessary. The quality and form of other more conventional options, such as Canterbury's Stephen Brett, just wouldn't merit being selected for the best back division on earth.
Indeed, there are many back in New Zealand who openly shrug their shoulders when asked if Donald is ready to lead the line for the Blacks. He is certainly a departure from Henry's normal preference for tidy footballers who always take the right option. Instead, the happy-go-lucky Donald is a gangling 6ft 3in streak of inspiration who takes high-risk options that tend to pay off in Super 14 but may not be quite as surefire at international level.
Henry wouldn't normally want to take a chance with a player who sounds suspiciously like a Kiwi Gregor Townsend, but he has admitted the need to fast-track the Waikato man, hence playing him in high-pressure games alongside the maestro, Carter. After all, the World Cup is just three years away and the turnover in players since the last grand slam tour three years ago has been enormous. All of the following from that tour are no longer available to the All Blacks: Leon MacDonald, Doug Howlett, Nick Evans, Rico Gear, Tana Umaga, Aaron Mauger, Luke McAlister, Byron Kelleher, Mose Tuiali'i, Chris Masoe, Jerry Collins, Sione Lauaki, Angus Macdonald, Chris Jack, James Ryan, Carl Hayman, Anton Oliver and Saimone Taumoepeau. Even Greg Somerville is only touring in extremis.
Donald is just one of several new faces that will take the field for the visitors on Saturday. With six games on this grand slam tour and 35 players along for the ride, Scotland and Munster have been pinpointed as the two games in which the tyros will be blooded. A raft of key senior players such as Richie McCaw, Carter and Ali Williams are all understood to be unlikely to play next week.
If Scotland can muster the necessary mental fortitude, and if it's freezing and raining, then Frank Hadden's men will never get a better chance to break their duck against the All Blacks. There's certainly every chance of catching them cold: key players such as Tony Woodcock have either not played since mid-September or have had just one game.
You could argue, of course, that all of the above could work against Scotland, that the All Blacks will be young and eager and fresh.
While Henry will want to know more about backs such as Wellington winger Hosea Gear and his provincial teammate, fullback Cory Jane, it is the forwards – and three youngsters in particular – that he is keen to test. The biggest is Southland loosehead prop Jamie Mackintosh, who weighs in at a few pints over 20 stone and will give Euan Murray a decent workout.
But it's in the back row where Henry and his forwards coach Steve Hansen have a couple of tasty young players they are keen to blood. Liam Messam is a 6ft 2in breakaway who played for the NZ Maoris in the 2006 Churchill Cup and was in the NZ 7s team that won Commonwealth Games gold. Fast and with all the skills, the 24-year-old Chiefs flanker is a prolific try-scorer, seen by many as the most skilful Kiwi forward to emerge since McCaw, but there are worries about whether he has the sheer bulk to make an impact at the highest level.
On the other side of the back row is a player who is positively Lilliputian at this level. Taranaki openside Scott Waldrom is just 5ft 10in tall and is reputed to weigh in at less than 15 stone, no matter what his programme notes say. He is coruscatingly fast, and consequently shows up well in the loose. Just how effective he can be at Test level is a huge unknown, and a day spent at the coalface against John Barclay will give a few pointers as to his potential.
Hadden will know that he has a chance to atone for the World Cup fiasco. There's no such thing as any easy All Blacks side, but the Kiwis have lost a whole generation to English and French top clubs, and will be resting the next best – Scotland will never have a better chance to break one of the longest- running records in world rugby.
HORE OUT OF TOURNEW Zealand coach Graham Henry hailed a gutsy second-half fightback as his side came from 14-9 down yesterday to edge out Australia in the first Bledisloe Cup played on neutral territory.
The All Blacks were pinned back for the majority of the opening 40 minutes at Hong Kong Stadium and two tries from Wallabies winger Drew Mitchell saw them trail by five points at the interval.
The accurate boot of Dan Carter had kept them in touch, though, and they eventually ran out 19-14 winners as winger Sitiveni Sivivatu and skipper Richie McCaw both touched down in the second period to cap a 3-1 series victory for New Zealand.
"The guys won ugly," Henry said. "They got better as the game went on. They played much better in the second-half than the first but it was a typical All Black/Wallaby Test match – hard as hell – and our guys showed enough guts to get through it and win."
The All Blacks paid a price, however, with an ankle injury to hooker Andrew Hore, which will most likely rule him out of New Zealand's tour of Britain and Ireland starting in Scotland on Saturday.
