LONG READ Building the All Blacks' leadership may be Dave Rennie's biggest task

These last weeks of Super Rugby have served as a reminder New Zealand is not short of exceptional players.

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There are explosive, powerful, skilled loose forwards, as the respective performances of Peter Lakai, Christian Lio-Willie, Samipeni Finau, Leicester Fainga’aunuku and Anton Segner attested.

There are similarly equipped midfielders in Jordie Barrett, Quinn Tupaea and Billy Proctor, and quality, athletic locks in Tupou Vaa’i, Josh Lord, Sam Darry and the emerging Jamie Hannah.

There are finishers – Caleb Clarke, Kyren Taumoefolau and Will Jordan (when he’s fit) – creators – Cam Roigard, Ruben Love and Damian McKenzie – and heavy lifters – Xavier Numia, Pasilio Tosi and Tyrel Lomax.

When new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie comes to finalise his 34-man squad for the Nations Championship on Monday after the Super Rugby final, it will be one many will see as potential winners of the inaugural tournament.

Throw in Ardie Savea, and the prospect of Richie Mo’unga returning in October, and this All Blacks squad has the requisite talent to be a serious contender at next year’s World Cup.

But talent is not the only factor that determines outcomes at the highest level of Test rugby. It’s a strategy-led game, multi-faceted and layered so decision-making is critical, too. Knowing how to stay calm, which areas of the field to play in and kick out of are just as important as having natural ability and broad skillsets.

New Zealand haven’t been a smart team under pressure, or the sort of outfit that have been able to calmly and methodically dig their way out of a hole and find a way to win.

This range of abilities is better known as leadership, and it’s something the All Blacks have desperately lacked in the last couple of years.

They haven’t been a smart team under pressure, or the sort of outfit that have been able to calmly and methodically dig their way out of a hole and find a way to win.

This has been in stark contrast to South Africa, who have dominated the global game for the last few years – which is as much because of their propensity to stay calm and hold their nerve as it has been the impact of their famed bomb squad.

They won three consecutive knockout games by a single point at the 2023 World Cup – which was lucky only in the sense they had the wherewithal in the big moments to tip the likelihood of preferred outcomes in their favour.

The All Blacks haven’t had anything remotely close to this ability and the problem is best illustrated by the lack of options facing Rennie as he decides who to make his captain now the incumbent, Scott Barrett, has been ruled out for the year.

The options – the serious ones at least – are decidedly few. The obvious choice is Savea, who has not only done the job many times before, but is also guaranteed of his starting place, globally respected and a strong communicator.

Savea is not everyone’s cup of tea, but he ticks all the necessary boxes. Codie Taylor is the other name being heavily touted, but that feels more to do with ani-Savea sentiment than it does any pressing case the veteran hooker can make.

Taylor has little captaincy experience at any level, is not a guaranteed starter given the form of Samisoni Taukei’aho and hasn’t shown himself to be a good decision-maker under pressure.

The problem is most visible in the backline where the likes of McKenzie, Jordan, Tupaea, Clarke and Fainga’anuku don’t strike as the sorts of big personalities who will take charge.

Jordie Barrett is another name in the frame, but again, he has little experience as a captain.

Roigard and Vaa’i are emerging leaders but probably not serious candidates yet.

It’s a shallow pool from which to pick and illustrates New Zealand is either not developing or simply doesn’t have natural leaders in its midst.

The problem is most visible in the backline where the likes of McKenzie, Jordan, Tupaea, Clarke and Fainga’anuku don’t strike as the sorts of big personalities who will take charge.

They are not the same sort of characters as Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu, Conrad Smith and Ben Smith who led the backline throughout the 2010-2015 era – in which the All Blacks won two World Cups.

That team also had the input of Richie McCaw, Kieran Read, Jerome Kaino, Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick and their individual and collective leadership was a huge factor in why the All Blacks only lost five games in five years.

Speaking recently on the Good, the Bad

and the Rugby podcast, former captain Read explained what that team had was belief – and cited the example of the last-minute try scored against Ireland in 2013.

“It was the last game of the season, so there was a little bit of letting the foot off the throat for us, maybe, at the start of that game, but we’re a team that had built this absolute belief in each other and the ability to come back from whatever situation was thrown at us,” he said.

“In that moment, we were down and out; it was like, ‘Okay, let’s go back to who we are, which is being All Blacks’, and you’ve got Skipper [McCaw] just telling you to relax and calm down, and we’re in a pretty good space mentally in that game, even though the scoreboard was telling us something different. It was like, ‘Nah, go to our process.’

“We went the whole field on the last play, in the 84^th minute, and scored. There’s something about belief and there’s something about building that over a period of time. And you can’t just switch it on.”

To Read’s point, that belief takes time to build – this is the big question mark hanging over the All Blacks as they eye a recovery under Rennie: can they develop the strength and depth of leadership they will need to forge the belief required to win a World Cup?

A lot of people think pressure is an unwelcome visitor you get only occasionally, but in an environment like the All Blacks and in any high-performance sport, it’s a lifestyle.

It’s a question Rennie has asked himself and why he decided to bring back mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka who was with the All Blacks between 2004-2023.

Anyone watching the All Blacks in the last two years would have seen the way the team consistently lost its way after half-time and spiralled into compound errors and an inability to wrestle back momentum.

Enoka has returned with a specific brief to improve the team’s leadership capacity much the same way he did before.

The great team of 2010-2015 didn’t organically grow its leadership ability – it was something they actively tried to improve through specific learning around decision-making process, communication techniques, clear lines of responsibility and by trying to understand the body’s physiological responses under pressure.

Rennie has come into the job with a view he needs to cut the leadership team down in size and let Enoka work some of his old magic in driving their collective ability.

He said the size of the leadership group and who is in it, will not be finalised until the squad has been picked – but it’s something he has deeply considered and will be determined to get right.

“We haven’t picked the captain, we’ve spent a lot of time talking to last year’s leaders, obviously brought Gilbert Enoka back in, and Bert [Enoka] and I have been doing a bit of work on that space,” Rennie said a few weeks ago.

“We’ve got our target guys that we think want to lead, and they’re prepared to challenge. That’ll take a little bit of time, but maybe the numbers will be less than what it was previously.”

Enoka’s job will be to reconnect the leaders with each other, the coaching group and the All Blacks’ legacy. He’s basically being charged with making the All Blacks more mentally resilient, cohesive and composed than they were in 2024 and 2025.

These three connection points have served the team well in the past – enabled them to deal with the pressure that comes with being an All Black.

“Once you understand that pressure is not something that you visit from time to time — a lot of people think it’s an unwelcome visitor that you get only occasionally, but in an environment like the All Blacks and in any high-performance sport, it’s a lifestyle,” Enoka said after it was announced that he was returning.

“You walk into it, and it’s an arena. It’s not your enemy, and once you understand that and get comfortable in it, you learn to function well with it,” he explained.

“Since I’ve been away, I think I’ve got a deeper appreciation now of the balance between performance and people, how you connect, how you lead, how you support each other under pressure. All those are the places where the real edge is. So, I’ve got better at that.”