LONG READ Rennie to shuffle No 10 pack as Richie Mo'unga's comeback is pushed back

There is a noble, but arguably errant stubbornness about New Zealand Rugby’s steadfast refusal to bow to internal and public pressure to allow Richie Mo’unga to be available for the All Blacks series against South Africa later this year.

Noble because there is always something admirable about an institution that has the fortitude to stay rigidly devoted to a belief even if the vocal community disagrees with the logic.

Potentially errant because NZR’s refusal to tweak the existing eligibility legislation to allow all returning players who have signed a contract – regardless of the duration of that agreement – to be immediately available for the All Blacks, has given head coach Dave Rennie a tricky mini-assignment as part of his enormously difficult macro task of trying to reset the national team and win next year’s World Cup.

To explain, NZR has a sliding scale of privilege dependent on how long a returning player commits to stay in New Zealand.

In the case of Mo’unga, he has signed an 18-month deal, and although he will be back from Japan in June, he won’t be eligible for the All Blacks until the Bledisloe Cup series against Australia in October.

If he had signed a three-year deal, he would have been eligible earlier – and available for the Greatest Rivalry series against South Africa in August-September.

Rennie revealed to media last week that when he came into the job in March, that he had been provisionally planning for Mo’unga to be available for the South Africa trip.

He wasn’t explicit, but he presumably thought that his request for Mo’unga to be granted an exemption by the NZR board would be granted.

We haven’t asked the board to relax that policy around Richie. We think the policy works for us. It keeps our best players in New Zealand playing in our competitions.

But NZR’s leadership didn’t agree. They believe the current policy makes sense in the long term and that it would set a dangerous precedent to make a special case of one player, which is why chief executive Steve Lancaster presented a paper to the board in early May that recommended not relaxing the current settings or making an exemption for Mo’unga to be fast-tracked.

“This is something we regularly revisit with the board,” Lancaster told Newstalk ZB. “It’s a relevant thing for our board as governors of the game to regularly consider and reflect on.

“We haven’t asked the board to relax that policy around Richie. We think the policy works for us. It keeps our best players in New Zealand playing in our competitions.”

The rationale for not changing is to protect the players who have remained in New Zealand and honour the terms and conditions that they were promised when they committed to stay.

In other words, NZR says that someone such as Damian McKenzie made a four-year commitment to stay and that the current eligibility rules – him knowing that Mo’unga (or any other offshore New Zealander) couldn’t come straight back into the All Blacks – would have been a factor in that decision.

“We’ve got some world-class players in the same position, and a number of those have committed to stay in New Zealand and play on the basis of the policy,” Lancaster said.

Leaving aside whether this was the right or wrong decision, what it has done is set up a hugely intriguing battle between McKenzie, Beauden Barrett, Mo’unga and Ruben Love.

And, it has created a difficult juggling act for Rennie as he tries to work out who he wants to install as his chief play-maker in the pre and post-Mo’unga periods and how he intends to use those who miss out.

The situation for the first seven Tests of the year has been simplified as Mo’unga will be able to train with the team but not play.

We’ve got guys who are currently playing, but the thinking would have been Richie would be in the group, getting his head around how we’re going to play the game and the detail within that

What’s revealing – indicative even of how the incoming coach sees the pecking order when all four are available – is that Rennie clearly had a plan earlier this year based on Mo’unga being granted an exemption. “My thinking would have been that we wouldn’t have used him [Mo’unga] in July [Nations Championship],” Rennie said.

“We’ve got good depth. We’ve got guys who are currently playing, but the thinking would have been Richie would be in the group, getting his head around how we’re going to play the game and the detail within that, include him in the squad to Africa and probably play him against the Stormers (in the) first game and let him earn the right to fight for a Test spot.

“But obviously the criteria means he can’t do that. I know there’s been a lot of chat around it and I guess the protocols mean that because Richie hasn’t committed for a couple of years, he’s not available to come to Africa and he’ll play NPC.”

There is still, however, a chance Mo’unga ends up in South Africa as Lancaster has confirmed an exemption will be granted if there are injuries.

But assuming he doesn’t make it to the Republic, Rennie’s going to have to find a different entry point for Mo’unga to play and stake his claim for the role, and the two-Test series against the Wallabies in October is tailor-made for that.

The All Blacks will play another 12 games – the remainder of the Nations Championship (Scotland, Wales, England, finals), an Anzac Day Bledisloe, a full Rugby Championship and a game against Scotland in Dunedin – before the World Cup kicks off, time that Rennie will presumably use to refine the team’s attack patterns and build cohesion.

It’s likely, given the need to enhance the team’s understanding of his vision, that he’ll want to be relatively consistent in his selections in those 12 Tests, which means he’s probably going to have to make a call about his preferred No 10 on the back of limited audition time for all of them.

Mo’unga will have the guts of the October Bledisloe series to state his case – but what about the seven upcoming Tests – the Nations Championship fixtures against France, Italy and Ireland and the four Tests against the Springboks?

Will Rennie play it relatively safe and entrust the No 10 jersey and the strategic management of the team in this period to Barrett?

In big games Barrett’s experience has counted and while he hasn’t shredded defences the way he used to, he’s given the team a calm head and played the percentages well enough.

The veteran hasn’t set Super Rugby alight and while some of that has been because the Blues have been strangely disjointed, Barrett has still looked reticent and hesitant.

Questions will be asked whether Barrett still has the electric pace, bold vision and ability to play with the ingenuity he did between 2016 and 2018, but in recent seasons he has been the steadiest and most reliable co-ordinator and game manager the All Blacks have had.

In big games his experience has counted and while he hasn’t shredded defences the way he used to, he’s given the team a calm head and played the percentages well enough.

The big unknown, however, is what the arrival of Rennie and new attack coach Mike Blair will bring to the All Blacks. There is a sense that the previous regime was muddled in how they wanted the All Blacks to play and it’s possible that Barrett was installed as the preferred No 10 not necessarily because he was the most dynamic, but because he was the least confused.

If the All Blacks want to make major shifts in their performances, they will need to play at greater pace, find more variation in their patterns and be a genuine triple-threat team again and Barrett will have to prove he is more than a safe pair of hands to keep the role longer term.

There is also the question of what to do with Love and whether there will be an opportunity for him to start a Test at No 10 and prove he can handle the play-making demands of international rugby as well as he does for the Hurricanes.

He’s been impressive in Super Rugby orchestrating the competition’s best backline and most definitely earned a chance to audition for the All Blacks role.

The Test against Italy in Wellington feels like it would be the right one to try to answer that question. McKenzie’s likely fate is to play off the bench for most of this year.

Rennie may not have got his wish of an exemption for Mo’unga, but the upside of the rejection is that it has put real pressure on all his various aspiring play-makers to perform.

Opportunities will be limited for Barrett, Love and McKenzie, and they will know that Rennie has an open mind on selection and will be swayed by form more than reputation.

To add to the pressure, for the first seven Tests of the year, the spectre of Mo’unga will be looming in the distance.

There is no doubt that Rennie would have preferred it if Mo’unga had been made available for the Greatest Rivalry series, but the situation may yet play to his advantage