Turner: NZ should look at World Cup 2015 now

Glenn Turner, writing for Fairfax NZ News, says, given World Cups' all-important status, if New Zealand decide they want to finally progress past the semi-finals in 2015, planning needs to begin with the imminent Zimbabwe series.

My advice to players is, choose your counsel carefully, open your mind to learning, and be personally responsible for your own development and performance. There's a need to choose emerging players to find out who has the required talent to be persevered with. This work should start immediately. At the same time it would be prudent to look at the current crop of players with a view to assessing which of them are most likely to be good enough to retain their places in the team through to and including the World Cup in 2015.

In the past two World Cups, the reality has been that selections, player preparation and their approach tactically to games have been more about saving face (putting in a respectable performance) than aggressively going out to win games. The fear of losing badly has tended to dominate thinking and consequently winning has too often relied on opponents having a bad day.