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Why Owen Franks missed the All Blacks World Cup cut
By Online Editors
After 108 tests, Owen Franks' tenure as the All Blacks' incumbent tighthead prop has come to an abrupt end.
The 31-year-old was a shock omission from the All Blacks' 31-man squad to challenge for the Rugby World Cup, with Chiefs trio Nepo Laulala, Atu Moli and Angus Ta'avao joining Joe Moody and Ofa Tuungafasi in the front row stocks.
One of the most tightly contested positions in the squad, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said it was an unsurprisingly tough decision to make.
"He is one of the great All Blacks," Hansen said of Franks. "He's certainly shown true character. His professionalism on and off the field has been magnificent over the years, he's played over 100 tests.
"Unfortunately, we as the three selectors, we believe the game requires us to have big, mobile No1s and No3s and in this case we just think the other guys that we've named are more so than he and therefore we had to make a tough decision."
Tuungafasi and Ta'avao, in particular, showed their ability to run the football throughout the Super Rugby season, with Tuungafasi taking the most runs of any tighthead prop in the competition.
Tuungafasi, Ta'avao and Moli can all play on both sides of the scrum, while Moody and Laulala are likely to draw starting roles at loosehead and tighthead respectively.
Hansen said the phone call to Franks to deliver the news wasn't easy, but credited the veteran with how he handled to decision.
"Obviously he's very disappointed, but I won't go into details about what we said or anything, but we're very respectful of how he coped with it and, again, it's a mark of the man."
The All Blacks will again be captained by Kieran Read, who will be taking part in his third Rugby World Cup, together with lock Samuel Whitelock and midfielder Sonny Bill Williams.
Hansen said over the last couple of months the team had been working at getting their game plans sorted while the selectors had been using the games to get greater clarity around the selection of the team.
"Now we are finally in a position to put all our time, effort and thinking into what is going to be an awesome challenge to try and do something that's never been done before - win three Rugby World Cups in a row," he said.
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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