All black for the All Blacks
The "fearsome" All Blacks were tamed... again
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Wednesday, 10, Oct 2007 09:23
It gave me no great pleasure to see the All Blacks bow out once again prematurely at the World Cup.
Actually, I lie, it did.
This is now officially the worst World Cup performance ever by an All Blacks team by what we were told was the best-prepared of all time.
They won in 1987 when they hosted the first World Cup, when it was largely invitational, but since then they have suffered a series of humiliating defeats.
Knocked out by Australia in the semi-final in 1991; beaten in the final by South Africa in 1995 - only to then claim that the entire squad had been poisoned by a waitress in their hotel; in 1999 the French (those French, eh?) played possibly the best 40 minutes of rugby ever in coming from behind to destroy New Zealand at Twickenham in the semi-final.
And then in 2003, World Cup hosts Australia sent the All Blacks home back across the Tasman Sea at the semi-final stage.
Having spent 98 per cent of their GDP on ploughing resources into building themselves the team that would win them that elusive World Cup, hiring (allegedly) three of the best coaches in the world and nurturing the players to the bosom of Graham Henry, the All Blacks have displayed great form over the past two years.
All around were crowing over their repeated pattern of peaking between World Cups, but this time the world was assured, it was different.
The players were in prime condition. They had been given good rest and recuperation periods and, frankly, no one else should even bother to turn up.
So where did it all wrong?
Their plan was to arrive fresh, but this meant they also kept their top players out of the Super 14 tournament - fearing injury and burnout, despite playing half the number of games their northern hemisphere counterparts faced.
This meant they arrived relatively light on match practice at the outset. Further, their 'easy' group in the pools did them no favours. With the only potential tester being against Scotland at Murrayfield, who fielded a second-string team and rolled over 40-0, they had not been effectively tested before the quarter-finals.
The French meanwhile are on the constant role of their own top domestic league which seems never-ending. This combined with the intensity of the Heineken Cup - a factor pointed out by the Australian coach, no less - as being key to the emergence of France and England in the tournament.
Their players had seen match intensity in Europe closer to that of international rugby, rather than the basketball style of play the southern hemisphere has to offer in the Super 14.
But back to the All Blacks. 55 per cent of the New Zealand public apparently blame the English referee for their failure, the first referee perhaps to actually referee the All Blacks effectively.
But the IRB head of referees, Paddy O'Brien (a New Zealander no less), was clear that the referee had done a good job.
Fifteen per cent blamed the players and seven per cent blamed Henry.
Others blamed the fact that they were not allowed to wear their all-black kit as the French won the toss on choice of kits. So, whatever else that happened it seems the English (that everyone hates, according to Aussie chief executive John O'Neill) caused the downfall of the All Blacks. Or maybe it was the French, but we all know that now.
Can we expect this holier than thou aura that apparently surrounds the All Blacks to drop? Will the New Zealand public now accept that they are not the God-given guardians of world rugby they so believe they are?
I hope so, but I somehow doubt it. You have to pity the players, as they will no doubt be brutally savaged in the unforgiving Kiwi media, and they do not come across as an overly arrogant bunch unlike some of the supporters.
So roll on four years and no doubt we will be assured that this is, again, the best-prepared All Blacks team ever and the Webb-Ellis Trophy is theirs for the taking. Or maybe England will be looking for three in a row.
So where to now?
New Zealand are the next hosts in 2011, having somehow wrangled the tournament off a much superior and what many say was a more deserved and better constructed bid from Japan.
In doing so, the Kiwis cited the idea that the Rugby World Cup was now becoming so big that this was the last chance that New Zealand would have of hosting such a major tournament.
But the chance to defend the crown at home has now gone and it is back to the drawing board for the New Zealand Union to see if they can create plan B to try and finally capture the one that seems to get away at every time of asking.
Rod Williams