Sam Cane on All Blacks captaincy, criticism and World Cup dream

The hotel lobby scene today is a collage of controlled chaos. Here, trolley loads of bags awaiting the cargo hold of a large jet airplane. There, large young men awaiting a fully reclining seat, and some shut eye. The things that have not found a place in the bag are boxed and ready to be dispatched to families across the nation. Families across the nation have dispatched the boys who have found a place in the team. Sam Cane is in a meeting with his leadership team. It is a long meeting.

Waiting. Watching. Short stories in a place of short stays. All Blacks head coach, Ian Foster, walks through the lobby with wife Leigh. Nothing out of the ordinary about a husband farewelling his wife before a work trip abroad, except this will be the last time he does as All Blacks head coach. As All Blacks anything. There is an extraordinary poignancy in that moment, for them both I bet.

Darren Shand, the long serving manager of the team wanders past. He says hello. He asks what I am doing. I tell him I am waiting for Sam Cane. I say I may have to make up the story if his meeting doesn’t finish soon. He says, “You’re good at making things up.” I don’t think it was a compliment. But it was delivered with a grin as all the best insults are.

Brodie Retallick appears, colossal as ever. His knee is braced. He was hoping to get out of having to wear the team issue cargo pants (he’s a shorts kinda guy), but the brace is in fact small enough to fit under the trousers, so he’s been foiled on that one. His knee is good he says. He’s off to see Pete the physio. One last piece of panel beating before the long flight.

The meeting goes on. Sam Cane is a busy man. He is captain of the All Blacks. He has been captain of the All Blacks since May 2020. He just wanted to be an All Black when he was younger, battling away on frosty fields in Reporoa, mist-wreathed and winter-chilled. When he met the All Blacks coaches in 2012 he told them he wanted to be a great All Black, just as his predecessor Richie McCaw had wanted to be. Nothing like upgraded ambition as a motivator. Nothing casts a longer shadow than potential.

The meeting goes on. This morning the All Blacks signed 500 jerseys. Interminable ink. Signed Rugby World Cup jerseys are something of a futures bet. What price will they fetch when the charity auction hammer falls? Who will cherish the indelible scrawls of these 33 young men? Will there be a clamber to adorn the office wall with French-designed Asian-manufactured German apparel? Will there be unlimited appeal for this limited edition? That depends on the result, naturally.

The meeting goes on. Other players emerge from elevators and descend staircases. They are dressed in their travel get up – black on black, denim jackets and cargo pants. They were born in the 1990s and now they are dressed by that decade. They are ready to make the short walk to the departure lounge: Ioane, Savea, Laulala, Taukeiaho, Mo’unga, Frizzell, Tu’ungafasi, Narawa. Black on black on brown, Pasifika radiance from morbid wardrobe.

Watching. Waiting. Outside and in the airport terminal, television cameras are ready to capture the departure. Journalists await with final questions. Inside the hotel, Sam Cane finally emerges from the meeting. He is yet to change into his travel clothes. His shorts cling to cylindrical thighs, his t-shirt strains against the trapezoid form, his square jaw is set. He is geometry in flip flops.

The captain of the All Blacks looks tired. He’s battled a wee illness this week but he’s come right in time for the flight. The morning has evaporated, he’s running on fumes, but he’s ready to “go get stuck into it”. The jersey signings, the Zoom calls, the leadership meetings, the bag packing – they’re done for now, but not for good. Is he still enjoying any of this, eleve years after first making the team?

“I’ve really loved this year,” he says, his eyes the colour of glacial lakes briefly widening. “I’ve been able to play with a little more trust and confidence in my body and I’ve been involved with amazing coaching teams with the Chiefs and here in the All Blacks. I think I just have great belief in what we’re trying to do and that’s easy to be enthusiastic about.”

Much easier to be enthusiastic about this year than last. Last year was the pits, as the All Blacks tumbled into the abyss, a barathrum of bad press borne of below-par results. It was a confronting time for the team, and for the organisation. Coaches lost their jobs, brand All Blacks took a battering, Sam Cane took one, too. As recently as last week he took another, courtesy of a British opinion piece. Those in the north have long been critical of Cane, manifestly more so since the “Black-lash” Test at Aviva Stadium in 2016, an ill-tempered and hostile affair during which Cane was cited, and later cleared of any wrong-doing, for a high shot on Ireland’s Robbie Henshaw.

Criticism is part of the job. Even more so when you’re the one filling THAT jersey. The number 7 has mythical qualities in this country, it carries hopes and expectations – mainly the latter. Sam Cane inherited that jersey from RH McCaw. That inheritance carries the burden of estate duties. You might think Cane’s body has already covered that particular cost – chief among the carnage, a broken neck - but it feels in many ways as if the balance will forever remain unpaid in the eyes of those who long for more glittering things.

It has been the debate over the relative merits of Sam Cane and Ardie Savea that has largely dominated discussions about the All Blacks forward pack in recent seasons, but those discussions have largely missed the point. A loose forward trio is an ensemble cast, with each playing to his or her strengths. Savea’s camera-time appeal is obvious, but less obvious is the foundational graft of Cane. For every Keith Richards there’s a Ronnie Wood.

“I have three key jobs in this team and the first is secure quick ball off our first strike from set piece. I missed one last week [against Australia in Dunedin] and even if others didn’t notice it stung the hell out of me.

“The second is to have the ability to make a tackle and to get back to my feet and into the defensive line to make another. We call those back-to-back efforts, and the statistics we keep around that are very comprehensive. I always want to be at the top in those statistics.

“That third truly crucial area is to make sure I am hitting defenders hard at the breakdown, which then helps our attack set for the next strike. If I can do all those things well I can usually walk off the field feeling satisfied with the day’s work.”

Cane says he knows he’s not the most talented ‘athlete’ in the team but there is a case to be made for sticking to his proverbial knitting. He is both the creator and the controller of chaos, and as such his role, often overlooked by the critics, is the one that provides the stage for the others to play on. If you looked at Cane’s game, you may even be tempted to say the entire team strategy is built around the things he does well. If he doesn’t perform, things don’t work. When viewed like this, you can understand why it is Cane, not Savea, who binds on the openside. And why he is so important. Savea’s strengths are much better utilised elsewhere.

“Good coaches always look at the combination of the loose forwards to find the right balance for the team. I’m not the one out there busting tackles and making linebreaks – as much as I would love to be that guy – so I know the part I have to play.”

Cane has grown a thick skin over the last three years. I suggest that’s because he’s 90% scar tissue. His captaincy has coincided with Covid, with coaching uncertainty, with an organisation in a state of financial revolution and reputational uncertainty. As captain he’s been privy to it all. He’s been at the centre of it all. But what kind of captain is he? Sam Cane is a soft talker, He searches for the right words, takes time to think about their form and order. He can be forceful but his manner is gentle. He has a farmboy charm and a gentleman’s handshake. How did he learn to lead and from whom?

“I think it is only this year that I have felt truly comfortable with the captaincy. I have learned to adapt to the responsibility over time because at the start it was incredibly overwhelming.

“There are things that I had no idea I would be involved in when I first was offered the job. The shape of the game, the decisions made away from the field. I always enjoyed leading on the field and at training but it is the back room work that takes most getting used to, and you have to lean on people to make sure you are doing things well and you have to have a strong leadership group with you.

“Obviously I have been shaped by the likes of Richie [McCaw] and Reado [Kieran Read] but it is hugely important that I lead in a way that is authentically me. If I don’t, if I try to be someone I’m not, this team will see right through me.”

Sam Cane is authentically himself when he speaks about his worst days as an All Black. It was a month’s worth of bad days. An historic series loss to the Irish in New Zealand followed by a first up loss to South Africa in last year’s Rugby Championship. He says the stress levels were high, the emotions were all at sea but the desire was through the roof. Eventually the All Blacks’ fortunes would change with a Test win at Ellis Park, but the axe still hovered over Ian Foster. The external noise was as deafening as a partisan South African crowd. There was, as Cane puts it, “A lot going on”.

“We wanted to celebrate, naturally, but there were a few conversations to be had first.

“We all get it. We all understand criticism and how it works, and through the criticism and the adversity I have learned to appreciate much more the people who do support me personally. There are far more of them than the others, it’s just they are not the loud ones. Years ago I had a naïve attitude, which was 'stuff them', but now I have a better tool to deal with it, which is not to actually let this stuff distract me in the first place.

“This team has stayed incredibly tight and we are better off for that and for the momentum we’ve been able to create this year. With that comes a bit more inner confidence and so I am both excited about where we are at and by how much growth there is still to come.”

Always more to come in this team, and now more have come to the lobby, too. They wait by the revolving door, that apt and perfect metaphor for this team, ready to go claim a piece of history for themselves. Dane Coles sits like a calm buddha, a veteran’s poise. Darren Shand keeps an eye on numbers, he too controlling the chaos. Sam Cane needs to get changed, fetch his bags, meet the coach in the lounge.

“I am itching to get into it and get the ball rolling. It’s been a long road getting here, a special ride though. And there’s a wee bit more to go.”

And with that, he says thanks and goodbye. His voice still soft and even. Those blue eyes fixed on mine as we exchange handshakes. I realise all the while that I have been leaning in, such is the manner of his conversation. I straighten up and try to think of a time when I have heard Sam Jordan Cane ever raise his voice.

Then it comes to me. He once did a Toastmaster’s course and memorised Al Pacino’s changing room monologue from Any Given Sunday. Dawn was breaking in Hamilton the morning after the Chiefs had won the Super Rugby title all those many years ago now. He stood in the driveway of his home and recited the entire thing to the team. A beautifully absurd sunrise salutation in a moment of triumph.

I kinda hope he gets to do that again.