At the recent IRB TOSHIBA Junior World Championship New Zealand reaffirmed their position as the world's finest at Under 20 level.
Worryingly for the rest of the world, it seems that they have also unearthed a young man ready to follow in the footsteps of Grant Fox, Andrew Mehrtens and Daniel Carter.
At the end of a tournament in which he produced a number of
tour de force performances, kiwi captain and fly half Aaron Cruden was crowned IRB Junior Player of the Year.
VIDEO: Watch Cruden's story on Total Rugby >>
In the company of the world's finest juniors that in itself is no small feat, but Cruden's journey through ill health and back to fitness over the past two years borders on the miraculous.
"I went to my local GP in February (2008) with some concerns and they ran a few tests, came back to me and told me there was nothing wrong, so I just went away and carried on doing what I normally do," said Cruden.
"Then I went back to my GP in early August and told him that the lump on my testicle had grown bigger and he sent me for an ultrasound, got the results back from that and that's when we found out it was a cancerous tumour."
Cancer at any stage of life is devastating. For a young man just starting out in rugby, it seemed that a promising career could well be over before it had started.
"Hearing a word like 'cancer' is pretty scary, so I didn't really know how to react, I didn't listen to anything else the doctor was telling me so I was lucky my parents were with me and they sort of just listened to everything, all the ifs and hows and where to go to now.
"The medical people that we dealt with were really good though, they got onto it straight away and we were able to get it in the end."
Full recovery
Following a course of chemotherapy, which stemmed the spreading of the tumour to his lung, Cruden has mercifully made a full recovery. He returned to training and was named captain as New Zealand prepared to defend the title it won last year.
"He's a special kid," said his coach Dave Rennie, who also coached the kiwis to that success last year. "He had about three cameos during the NPC (New Zealand's National Provincial Competition) last year and really turned some heads. He was really impressive.
"Then he got the set-back with cancer, so he was very strong through it and he's got a lot of support around him. Once he got the clearance, he could rip back into training, he really worked hard, he wanted to make up for lost time."
Cruden's leadership was in evidence in the tight semi final win against rivals Australia and then in the final against England - a carbon copy of last year's in Wales.
Match winner
New Zealand ran in seven tries, Cruden scoring two and setting up another three, a superb display that sealed his selection as IRB Junior Player of the Year, in association with Emirates Airline.
"I have to give credit to my team," he said modestly. "They went forward all day and gave me front foot ball so it was really easy. I'm pretty lucky it wasn't voted on a goal kicking competition, or I might have finished fourth! But anyway I'm very honoured to be named Junior Player of the Year.
Most of all, however, Cruden's up-and-down experiences over the past year have taught him to seize each opportunity in rugby and in life.
"There are two options: you can either ask 'Why Me?', go into your shell and give up, or there's the fight-until-the-end attitude and that's the attitude I took up and that's what got me through.
"It puts things into perspective, that you can't take life for granted, you've got to live every day to its fullest and just get the most out of life.
"It's made me mature a lot quicker than I thought I'd have to, but that can't be a bad thing!
