There's such a meme about Sam Cane; and I really think its far from the truth and more that folks don't understand his role at 7, especially when we have Ardie Savea playing. He's there to tackle opposition to a standstill on defence and on attack to clean out their defenders or tidy up when there's bad ball or the structure has gone.

It'd be handy if he could get over the ball a bit more as well like a traditional jackalling 7, but more often than not when he's in a collision its as the first tackler which means he can't and somebody else should be having a go.

If you look at his performances with an eye to those tasks, he's clearly the best 7 in NZ, more so this year than last as Papali'i has fallen away a bit, but even last year he was doing his role better than most ABs were doing theirs.