Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind

Following in the vein of The Mouth of the South, I thought Id throw together a 15 as well.

This is the inaugural "All Black what ever happened to .... 15" (cue stirring, reflective type music). Recent All Blacks who never quite made it, and have since faded into some type of obscurity. Maybe they fell out of favour with a particular coach. Perhaps they were groomed to take the spot of a legend but when their time finally came, someone younger and better had caught them up and passed them by. Maybe they got injured, forgotten and left our fine shores to take the money overseas. It’s an interesting list.

15 - Fullback: Ben Blair (2002)

14 - Wing: Bruce Reihana (2000)

13 - Centre: Mark Robinson (2002)

12 - Second Five-eighth: Keith Lowen (2002)

11 - Wing: Norman Berryman (1998)

10 - First Five-eighth: David Hill (2006)

9 - Halfback: Danny Lee (2002)

8 - Number Eight: Ron Cribb (2001)

7 - Openside Flanker: Sam Harding (2002)

6 - Blindside Flanker: Sam Broomhall (2002)

5 - Lock: Royce Willis (2002)

4 - Lock: Simon Maling (2004)

3 - Prop: Clarke Dermody (2006)

2 - Hooker: Mark Hammett (2003)

1 - Prop: Campbell Johnston (2005)

Halfback was the real tough one, with names such as Mark "Sharky" Robinson and Steve Devine also baring consideration. Also I took some liberties with Broomhall, who primarily played number 8 for Canterbury. We haven’t gone through many blindsiders that aren’t still in the team. It appears it was a popular spot for the captain (Randall, Thorne, Blackadder).

Man, having a look back, it appears that 2002 was a bad year for All Black careers.