Dallas McLeod, the biggest All Blacks bolter since, well, ever?

ANALYSIS: Okay, surely even Dallas McLeod’s family and closest mates didn’t see that one coming. Heck, perhaps even the man himself if he’s truly honest.

After all, the 24-year-old has only really just been finding his way at Super Rugby level this year, and the midfield is by no means short of contenders for the black jersey.

Yet, on a wet winter’s night in Te Awamutu, the romance of an All Blacks squad announcement taking place at a true grassroots venue was majestically coupled with the beauty of a bolter.

Don’t feel too ashamed if you found your fingers fishing for Google when New Zealand Rugby chair Dame Patsy Reddy read out the name of the Crusaders midfielder in the 36-man Rugby Championship squad.

McLeod was one of five rookies named on the night, though was the only one of those genuinely not in the conversation of the pundits and the public in the lead-up. All of a sudden he now has a golden chance to book a ticket to the World Cup in France later in the year.

Hailing from Methven and schooled at Christ’s College alongside good mate Ngane Punivai, McLeod had appeared in just 13 matches (seven starts) in his first three seasons with the Crusaders.

This year, he’s played 13 alone (11 starts), largely thanks to the red and blacks’ bulging casualty ward. Others’ misfortune is someone else’s gain and all that.

So good has McLeod been – a nuggety ball carrier who is impressively strong in contact and carries defenders over the gainline – that Scott Robertson has been unable to leave him out, and he has instead found himself on the wing doing his thing.

Not for the first time, though, having begun his Canterbury NPC career there also in 2019, a few months after All Blacks coach Ian Foster first laid eyes on him.

“I watched him in the [New Zealand] Under-20s a few years ago and was very impressed with him then,” Foster said of the man who was most certainly his biggest selection surprise.

“And sometimes players take a little bit longer [to make the step up]. He’s probably had a year or two where he didn’t get a lot of opportunity at Super level, but I think injuries down there have given him opportunity.

“He’s big [1.90m, 101kg], he’s raw-boned, he’s quick, and he’s got an outstanding attitude to get involved. He doesn’t hold back, he backs himself, he’s a great kick-chase person, we’ve seen that on the wing, and he’s shown that versatility basically through necessity, I guess, to change his position.

“We see him primarily as a 12, and when you look at our squad, we’ve obviously got a couple of 12s [David Havili and Quinn Tupaea] that are out injured, so this is a great chance for us to build some depth in that position.”

Along with his “physicality”, “wholeheartedness” and “plenty of courage”, was McLeod’s versatility a help in his selection, then?

“It doesn’t do him any harm,” Foster noted.

“Most players don’t like to get tagged with the versatile and utility thing, but the fact is he’s shown that.

“When you’re going into a World Cup you still need specialists, but there is room for someone to come in and show that they can solve a few problems for you. So he certainly does that, and it’s a chance for us to figure that out.”

McLeod joins Jordie Barrett, Anton Lienert-Brown, Rieko Ioane and Braydon Ennor as the midfielders in the squad, and leaping ahead of soon-to-be-Crusaders-team-mate Levi Aumua in the pecking order, with the powerhouse Moana Pasifika rep surprisingly not even making the cut for the All Blacks XV squad either.

“We don’t like to talk too much about players that we didn’t pick, because there are some quality players that didn’t make either team, and history’s full of guys coming back in,” Foster said.

“But he’s [Aumua] a strong player, he’s a good player, I get that, and we can see a lot of strengths in his game. But we also see a lot of strengths in the likes of Billy Proctor, Jack Goodhue, Alex Nankivell and Bailyn Sullivan… we just felt that we had four midfielders there who we have kept our eye on for a long time.”

In what already shapes as a big week for McLeod, with the Super Rugby Pacific final against the Chiefs in Hamilton on Saturday night, a test debut could then be just a fortnight away in the Rugby Championship opener against Argentina in Mendoza.

Though Foster warned it was far from a given for all the new caps to be racking up plenty of game time just for experiment’s sake ahead of the 33-man World Cup squad naming.

“They’ve been selected in the squad and we’ll make decisions as we go along,” he said.

“But what I have been clear about is that this Rugby Championship’s important for us. So we’ll be picking the team that we think is right to win each test.”