Yeah, and it's not like his a Kiwi with a Scottish grandmother, it appears his connection to Wales is more substantial.
I think he's very unlucky not to have played at 15 for the All Blacks. Dagg has been gash almost since 2011 and last season in particular I think there was a reasonable agrument for him to be dropped, leaving room for Abscombe to at least bench.
Not sure about him as a 10 though. Wasn't great for the Cheifs there lat weekend by then he doesn't play much there due to Cruden being, obviously, much better option there.
Anscombe is a good player, but I feel he is rather over-rated. He is nowhere near the top 5 10's in the country (Carter, Barrett, Cruden, Slade, Taylor, and even Sopoaga now are well ahead of him), and wouldn't be in the top 5 fullbacks either (Smith, Dagg, Piutau, Tom Marshall, Nanai-Williams, Jane, and Barrett are all better options), therefore (rightly) hasn't been anywhere near All Blacks selection. He is still very young (22) so could develop into a test class player, but he is not near that level yet. Indeed he probably wouldn't be starting for the Chiefs if all their players were available (Tikoirotimu, Nanai-Williams, and Marshall would be my first choice back 3). He is an average 10 - he stands far too deep on attack, struggles to control the game, and doesn't like tackling forwards that run at him. He acceleration/pace and long kicking game make him handy at fullback where he has some space to move, but I still don't think he has mastered the positional aspects of fullback yet. His biggest asset is his goal-kicking - he is a 80%+ kicker and has an excellent range too - that alone can make him a valuable.
As a slight aside, Kirwan seems to be receiving a whole lot of flak for de-listing Anscombe from the Blues initially, but I'm not sure whether people actually know the full story. Anscombe was obviously a talented young player, but he struggled to prove himself at 10 for the Blues in 2012 - indeed he had not yet proved himself yet at ITM Cup level, and was included in the Blues more on potential (and the fact the Blues had no other options) than anything else. He wasn't actually dropped by the Blues as such - the NZRFU only allows franchises to protect 28 players - Kirwan and co. decided he wasn't in the top 28 players in the squad, so they didn't protect him (and were hoping to pick him up as one of there last 4 players). Based on performance Anscombe probably didn't deserve to be in the top 28 players, the only reason he would be included is based on potential. A number of sources have suggested Anscombe also was not the easiest player to deal with off the field either. He was not happy about being dropped from the starting spot at the Blues, as he apparently had a sense of entitlement that only a coaches son could have (his father was the coach of Auckland / NZ U20's).
After being left out of the initial Blues squad he was very close to leaving NZ rugby. He wasn't planning on going to Wales, the country of his mother that he holds so dear to heart but, but rather to Ireland. By all reports he was very close to signing with Ulster, and committing himself to Ireland. To be fair I don't think this was purely out of a desire to play international rugby, rather he was simply planning on throwing his toys out of the cot and running to his daddy (who was the new Ulster coach). Obviously this didn't happen (as the Chiefs offered him a contract), but it does again illustrate how farcical the current international eligibility rules are! (I would be happy withe 5 years / scrap the grandparents rule as has been proposed here).
Anyways.... Good luck to Anscombe if he decides to leave. Unless he improves a lot I can't see him being a major improvement on the current crop of Welsh 10's, and Wales aren't really in need of a goal-kicking fullback at the moment....
I remember when we signed Hargreaves thinking who the hell is this guy whats he going to do he then turns into one of our best players, I guess it's like New Zealand and wingers, the production line for second rows in South Africa is just ridiculous. I wonder if they are going to try to get Bekker as he would be a world class replacement for Muller.
