Rising from the Ashes

It won’t be high on their agenda or an intended goal by any means, but in selecting the 2019 World Cup squad, the All Blacks coaches will be setting some players on a new path to star at the 2023 tournament.

This is the power of rejection when it is well harnessed. This is what can happen if those who are not selected for the 2019 tournament are shaped, rather than defined by rejection.

The All Blacks, who always have a supply-demand imbalance of personnel at World Cups, have seen rejection make more players than it has break them.

They have seen World Cup rejection act as an emotional furnace and bring the best out of players who perhaps needed something to jolt them.

So when the time comes to name the 31 who are going to Japan, the interest won’t be confined to how that group responds to the challenge of trying to make history by winning a third consecutive title.

There will be a longer term project to keep an eye on which will be seeing who of the rejected players finds a way to use disappointment to drive them to new heights.

There are about 50 players with genuine aspirations of being at the World Cup.

Some of that group have already decided they will be heading offshore after the tournament. Others will be too old to realistically refocus and try to make it to France 2023.

But the