Too much of a good thing? The All Black midfield question.

Can you have too much of a good thing? Too many Double Cheeseburgers – probably. Too many brews at the pub – most certainly. In the case of quality midfielders? Well, I think we are getting to a position, in NZ rugby, where we may do.

At the last three World Cups we have struggled the most when it comes to midfielders. That should come as no surprise to anyone. So surely the fact that we have a great pool of quality midfielders can only be a blessing this time around. I am beginning to think it may become a real headache going into the cup for us.

First of all, which players make up this pool of quality. In Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith we have the best midfield combination in International Rugby for the past two seasons. Sonny Bill Williams and Robbie Fruean scream quality and bring a completely new dimension to any attacking game-plan. Throw in Richard Kahui as a specialist centre as well as utility backs like Luke McAllister, Isaia Toeava, Jarred Payne and Rene Ranger and you have depth that any international side in any sport anywhere would kill for.

In Nonu and Smith we have a wonderful combination who probably could play every test this year and win us a World Cup. Dont worry about it, lock away the trophy, who cares. Best midfield combination we have ever had. Its all in front of them. Now though, do we have better players? Is Fruean a better option than Smith? Williams better than Nonu? Possibly, possibly not. But the complicating factor in all of this is Nonu and Smith are wonderful as a combination, Nonu without Smith in a test match and I would watch peeking out from behind a cushion. But Williams and Fruean don't scream composed in a tight test match. Surely, the answer is easy. Give everyone a run this year and then decide come World Cup time who our best combination is. You probably dont even need to give Nonu and Smith a run together in a black jersey until we kick off the tournament.

Not that easy unfortunately. Everyone agrees everywhere that we need to give our team some time together in the run into the tournament to make sure the combinations are sorted and everyone is singing from the same sheet. So we aren't exactly in a position to experiment at the World Cup and we only have four tests prior to the World Cup.

Here are the two options as far as I see it:

1. Bank on Nonu and Smith. They are world class performers with a world class track record and are good enough to win us the World Cup. The downside of that is that we may have better players who don't get a chance. We don't want to be sitting around in October bemoaning what could have been.
2. Experiment through the Tri-Nations and opening games of the World Cup, decide who our best combination are come the quarter finals. The downside to that is we get to the position we got to last time, we don't know who our best team is and we play like a team who haven't played enough together.

Its a decision I don't fancy making and I would suggest that sometimes the best decisions are the ones you don't have to make but are essentially made for you.