Leicester Fainga’anuku

Leicester Fainga’anuku is the most physically imposing back three player New Zealand can select, and the one whose career has taken the strangest route.

He is a power wing in an era that mostly stopped producing them: he does not step around defenders so much as go through the outside shoulder, and he is difficult to bring down one-on-one near the line.

He can also play centre, and New Zealand have used the flexibility to change the shape of their midfield without changing personnel.

A move to France in the middle of his Test career, and the eligibility consequences that came with it, cost him a chunk of All Blacks rugby at exactly the wrong age. The return to Super Rugby was a decision to prioritise the black shirt.

Whether that gamble pays depends on selection rather than form. On what he does on the field, the case has never been in doubt.