The drums are starting to beat a bit louder for Du’Plessis Kirifi.
I can remember when he arrived in Wellington from Hamilton in 2017 and the way he carried himself.
Kirifi had the swagger and confidence of a 50-test All Black and quickly gravitated towards the better players in the side. The same was true when he was elevated to the Hurricanes’ squad two years later.
Since then he’s shown himself to be a durable, competitive and athletic openside. Not big, but certainly a brave and boisterous presence on the paddock.
He might not have accumulated a single cap for the All Blacks, but he’s continued to give the appearance that he believes he belongs in that company.
That might soon become a reality, given how often coaches and selectors succumb to public sentiment.
Personally, I think we waste quite a lot of time discussing players who are unlikely to ever be All Blacks of consequence.
I always admired the play of Pita Gus Sowakula, for instance, but never really regarded him as All Black material. I said as much on a radio interview a few years back, which seemed to offend the host.
His contention was that Sowakula had to be an All Black and it would be an egregious snub if he wasn’t. My counter was that he was playing the same position as Ardie Savea and I couldn’t see a world where Sowakula ever displaced him in the side.
Sowakula was eventually picked, discarded and we all moved on.
And that’s kind of how I feel about Kirifi.
I see the argument for him as a player of test quality, I just don’t see where he quite fits in New Zealand’s loose forward mix, where the preference is for players who can occupy multiple spots in the trio.
With Sam Cane now retired there is a spot up for grabs, but I’d be surprised to see it become permanently occupied by Kirifi.
We’re yet to see how Scott Robertson configures the loose forward mix, but Savea will be in it. So too Ethan Blackadder and Wallace Sititi, once fit.
Peter Lakai looked the part against France at the end of last year, Samipeni Finau was a fixture in the squad and then you’ve got others such as Dalton Papali’i and Luke Jacobson.
Five of those blokes do, or can, play openside, as well as offering an option at 6 or 8.
Yeah, you could add Kirifi to that list – and I don’t think he’d look particularly out of place – but at the age of 28 it’s hard to see that he’s got a lengthy test career in front of him.
I don’t write any of this to be critical of him or to run him down. Kirifi is a good player and there’s a huge amount to admire about the way he plays his rugby.
I just go back to the point that we often devote too much time to pushing the test claims of players who come and go from the All Blacks pretty quickly.
Take Shaun Stevenson. Great to watch, accumulated plenty of highlights over the years, but the coverage of the man is completely disproportionate to his status in the game.
There will always be players, such as Stevenson and Sowakula who accumulate a cap or two. Kirifi could become another.
But, when we’re talking about potential All Blacks, I think we should be talking about guys with the potential to play 50 tests-plus and guys who’ll go down in the annals of history.
I might be reading this wrong. Maybe Kirifi will one day be talked about in the same breath as the great opensides of my lifetime such as Richie McCaw, Josh Kronfeld, Michael Jones and Graham Mourie.
I just think sometimes it’s okay to regard someone as a good player, without demanding they be made an All Black.
