While the Ardie Savea captaincy story dominated the headlines from this week's edition of The Breakdown, the more pressing All Blacks issue may have come ten minutes earlier — when Jeff Wilson laid out, position by position, why loose-head prop is keeping Dave Rennie awake at night.
New Zealand's 2026 international schedule is no place to be short of front-row firepower. Rennie has 18 months to assemble a Rugby World Cup squad, but he must first navigate four consecutive Tests against the Springboks, plus visits from France and Ireland. And it is the loose-head, not the celebrated back-three or the captaincy, that Wilson believes could be the season's defining vulnerability.
"It's interesting how there was no love for loose-head prop there, and I'm the one that put loose-head prop in that poll," Wilson said. "Because we are playing the Springboks four times in a row, four weeks in a row, right? Tamaiti Williams, I think it's highly unlikely we see him given all the challenges he's going through. Whether we'll see him again in 2026 at the highest level — I hope he gets himself right and gets healthy and we see the best of him."
The Crusaders prop's absence is the load-bearing concern. With Williams sidelined and his return uncertain, Wilson walked through the depth chart in stark numbers.
"We've only got Ethan de Groot. We've only got Ethan de Groot, who's played 40 Test matches. This is what you're missing with Tamaiti Williams. You've got George Bower, who's played 24 Test matches. Ollie Norris is three, right? There is no experience and depth in this position."
The nominal escape valve — recalling Ofa Tu'ungafasi from offshore commitments — was dismissed almost out of hand.
"Are you going to go back to Ofa Tu'ungafasi? Highly unlikely given he probably won't be around next year."
The blunt arithmetic explains why the issue ranks above the more glamorous selection debates around 10 and back-three. Test rugby at the top end is decided as much in the scrum as anywhere else, and four straight outings against a Springbok pack that has terrorised every front row it has met since Rugby World Cup 2023 is the worst possible stress test for thin reserves.
"We've got some challenges," Wilson concluded, "and if you are exposed at scrum time at the highest level at Test match rugby, it's going to be a difficult season for the All Blacks. So I think for me, loose-head right now, a little bit of concern."
Neither Mils Muliaina nor Stephen Donald disagreed with the diagnosis. Muliaina nodded along as Wilson worked through the names, and the panel's collective tone shifted from the ordinary good-headache-to-have register that had framed the loose-forward and first-five debates. The All Blacks, by every other measure, have an embarrassment of riches in the back row, three legitimate first-fives competing for the No. 10 jersey, and a fullback rotation thick enough to cause arguments.
Loose-head, Wilson made plain, is different. It is not a problem of how to choose between equals. It is a problem of whether there are enough qualified bodies to get through the Springbok block at all. With Williams a question mark, de Groot the only century-trained option and Bower's experience yet to be tested under pressure deeper than the Rugby Championship, an injury or a misfiring scrum on 4 July could quickly cascade into a full-blown crisis.
The first Test of the Rennie era is in Christchurch against France. The Springbok series begins three weeks later. By then, Rennie will need answers Wilson has just demonstrated he does not currently have.
Source: The Breakdown, All Blacks YouTube channel, 4 May 2026.
