Ian Foster making no promises on minutes for Tuivasa-Sheck and fringe players

NRL star turned All Black Roger Tuivasa-Sheck’s rugby union journey to date has been far from smooth sailing but fans are hoping the upcoming Northern Tour will see the hot stepper take the field and finally gets some meaningful minutes in the black jersey. Head coach Ian Foster gave an insight into his thinking around selection at the teams training on Thursday.

After reassuring fans he has no intention to switch back to his familiar code of Rugby League, Tuivasa-Sheck was named in Fosters’ squad for the end of year tour which will see the All Blacks face Japan, Scotland and Wales before facing England at Twickenham.

Foster’s match day 23 has been a tough selection to crack this international season, with his job security on shaky ground and only so many matches left until next years Rugby World Cup, the All Black coach has been determined to build as much chemistry as possible between his preferred players.

Tuivasa-Sheck had played at second-five since returning to Rugby union, appearing there for the Blues and All Blacks but recent NPC appearances for Auckland have seen him start on the right wing.

“Yea he went alright, it gives us options,” Foster said of the positional switch.

“I think the more versatile some rugby players can become, the better it is and it’s given him a greater insight to the game so it’s certainly going to help.”

If Tuivasa-Sheck were to impress in the 14 jersey, there is potential for him to carve out a role as an impact player off the bench who could cover multiple positions.

Pressure remains on the team to deliver convincing wins throughout the tour, so just how much opportunity the fringe players will get is unclear.

“I think when you look at test matches, they’re called test matches for a reason, they’re tough and the goal is to try and grow our team performance.

“We’re making all sorts of assessments on players, on how they’re training, the energy levels and the opportunities that they need to have.

“It’s not possible to please every individual and give them everything they want but we certainly know that we want to give players as many opportunities as they can in order for them to grow and clearly this test series along with the B team that we’ve got going up, is giving us a good opportunity to I guess spread our base a little bit.

“We’ll see, we’ve just got to look at each team as we go along, the goal is to build our team performance and if that gives us opportunity, that’d be great.”

Tuivasa-Sheck faces competition for the 12 jersey from top option David Havili, the multi-talented Jordie Barrett and recent returnee from injury, Anton Lienert-Brown.

“he’s come through well except he tweaked his groin a little bit so he hasn’t done a lot of training this week.” Foster said of Lienert-Brown’s return to the squad.

What exactly the “tweak” means for the chiefs midfielder is unknown, as Foster could only report “we’ll wait and see”.