Everything on the Line
World Cup years never fail to throw up something unexpected. There will be in 2019, as there always has, a number of storylines no one saw coming.
It’s just the way it is because as hard as everyone might try to treat it as a normal year, it isn't.
The World Cup looms large over everything. The All Blacks will play their first test against South Africa in Yokohama almost exactly seven months after the first Super Rugby game kicks-off.
Seven months in rugby terms is not that long in one sense. A serious injury and a World Cup dream can be shattered.
There have been plenty unfortunate to suffer that fate. In 2015 the big casualty was Aaron Cruden.
He was looking sharp and confident but in a game against the Crusaders his studs appeared to stick in the ground as he was jogging to a lineout and his knee pushed out the wrong way.
That was him for the year – his ligaments torn and his season over. Patrick Tuipulotu was another who missed out.
The big lock was pencilled in as the third lock in the World Cup squad but a groin injury he incurred in February required major surgery and he wasn't on the plane to England as a result.
In 2007 Jason Eaton suffered a nasty knee injury a few weeks after another lock, James Ryan, endured the same fate and the All Blacks ended up scrambling for second-rows to take to France.
It’s curious, though, because seven months is long enough to make as well as break a World Cup dream.
It is enough time for a relative unknown to produce the
