Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The All Blacks may have picked the wrong captain

Are we sure that Scott Barrett should be the captain?

This is the thing that I've been thinking about for the last two weeks watching the games, it's what struck me when I watched the game at Eden Park and the ceremony for Ardie Savea's 100 tests, and the fact that the team clearly rallied not only to defend the fortress, which I think was predominantly what they were rallying for, but also they rallied to give Ardie Savea a fitting win.

Watching that happen and watching the ceremony afterwards and clearly seeing the love that the team had for him, did you not think it at any point during that - I wonder if that man should actually be the captain?

And then this week, I saw the press conference with Razor and Scott Barrett sitting next to him, and I had the same thought, but the mirror of it, which was - should that man really be the captain?

It just didn’t feel the same, you know what I mean. 

And this is nothing against Scott Barrett, who clearly comes from a lovely family and seems like a fun guy. But I can't understand Razor’s commitment to him.

There should be no question about a captain's selection, right? There was no question that Richie McCaw would be the one named at #7. There was no question that Kieran Read would be the one named at #8. But is Scott as convincing?

Are you sure he's going to be the one named in his position? Are you sure that his discipline is good enough to warrant being the captain, or are there too many red cards and too many yellow cards week in, week out that suggest that maybe when he's under pressure, he just crumbles a little bit?

Is he the right leader on field when the team starts falling behind?

Given the fact that his record as a captain has largely been with the formidable Crusaders, has he actually had enough losses and enough knocks in his career to know what to do when your team is on the underside and absolutely on track to lose the game, and you need to turn it around, you need to get a win under your belt?

Because is that actually what happened, what went wrong on Saturday night?

When they started losing, and you saw it on the field, they just all gave up at a point. Did they all give up because their captain had given up?

Now, there is an argument that the coaches should come under scrutiny first before the captain, and maybe that is the correct order of things.

And frankly, I don't know enough about the assistant coaches to really have an opinion one way or the other.

But I think when it comes to the captain, many of us have already come to the right conclusion and the same conclusion here, which is that they may have the wrong captain.

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