McNicholl will give North some competition

Five years ago Johnny McNicholl found himself surrounded by so many All Blacks that it must have seemed a mere matter of time before he became one himself.

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A substitute wing for the Crusaders at the 2014 Super Rugby final, he belonged to a squad studded with no fewer than 15 current or future New Zealand Test players, 12 in the starting XV, three more on the bench.

All the big names were there – Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Israel Dagg, Kieran Read, Sam Whitelock, Codie Taylor, Joe Moody...

McNicholl had rolled off the most productive of all assembly lines, the one reserved for wings and those, like Dagg and Damian McKenzie, able to double up at full-back.

Two years after the Crusaders had lost that final to the Waratahs by the odd point in 65, McNicholl chose to take what has turned out to be a circuitous alternative route into the Test arena. Another of the supporting cast from 2014, Willi Heinz, has already beaten him to it.