Deep. Can You Dig It?

After the Rugby League World Cup semi-final, I thought I’d seen it all. Shaun Johnson’s moment of magic after 79 minutes and 42 seconds, to snatch relief from the jaws of despair, was amazing. But then on Monday morning NZ time came an even greater Houdini impersonation. At the 79 minute 42 second mark, Ireland had just conceded a penalty and the All Blacks were busy taking then re-taking a quick tap inside their own half. Even the most fervent black-jersey-wearing mochaccino-sipping inappropriate-language-using fan (i.e. me) had flagged this as the All Blacks first ever loss to the Irish. I’d given up. But luckily I’m not the captain of the national team. Richie McCaw portrayed immense calmness as he implored his teammates to carry on. After the aforementioned quick tap was taken, McCaw’s troops worked their way steadily down the field as a courageous but physically exhausted Irish pack struggled to hold on. Finally, with the full time siren but a distant memory, a couple of slick passes allowed Ryan Crotty to crash over near the corner to tie the game. After a false start when taking the conversion, Aaron Cruden recovered to slot the extra two points and what had been an impossibility just minutes earlier had become a reality. The All Blacks had certainly dug deep.

We Kiwis always look at our team first when analysing a loss or a close result. And I will do just that in one moment. But this was a fantastic performance by the Irishmen. They were brave, skilful, immense at the breakdown and at set pieces and clinical in their execution. Well, they were clinical right up until the missed penalty with about four minutes remaining (Jonathan Sexton used up every second he could – maybe he took too long and lost concentration) which would have secured victory for the home team. But this Irish team was unrecognisable from the one that capitulated against the Wallabies last week. They should be very proud of their efforts despite the 24-22 loss.

The British media reacted with a mixture of joy and a tinge of surprise that the All Blacks are not infallible. Well, of course they’re not. The Chicago Bulls in the 1990’s lost plenty of games, as did the mighty Lakers outfit of the 80’s, Arsenal’s great side of a decade ago, Manchester United up until last season, the Australian cricketers of the late eighties till the retirement of Warne and McGrath; need I go on? Great teams lose games. But they win more than they lose. The Media up yonder have also commenced their usual ‘The All Blacks will be vulnerable come World Cup time’. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.

But there were a few aspects of this performance from the AB’s that made me a little nervous.

Scrummaging

This very important set piece aspect of the game has looked shaky all tour and, despite an improvement, still didn’t look particularly solid at times in this test. I think loosehead stocks fall away sharply after Tony Woodcock, so I’ll be interested to see how Hansen’s project Jeff Toomaga-Allen goes if he gets any runs in the number one jersey next season. On the other side of the front row, I believe Owen Franks and Charlie Faumuina are very good props. But on too many occasions this season the opposition loosehead has managed to shunt the right side of our scrum backwards. This needs to be addressed urgently before next season.

Bulk

Has anyone else noticed how physically big international players from other countries are getting? It’s especially prevalent in the northern hemisphere where backs are starting to resemble loose forwards, loose forwards look more like tight forwards and tight forwards like rhinos. Examples in this Irish squad are lock Devin Toner who weighs 125kg and first five Jonathan Sexton who is 6 ft 2 in and 92 kg. Aside from any stats I just think these players look bigger and often stronger than our lads. Even Brian O’Driscoll appears to have grown a new set of guns. And I think we’ve been dominated at the breakdown by several teams this year because of that. The All Blacks are ridiculously fit, and that fitness has won them games and will continue to do so. But rugby is increasingly a game of physical combat that can be won and lost at the breakdown. I’ve said before I thought that if Sam Whitelock added just a few kgs of muscle, he’d be an even more amazing player. And I still believe that. I’m prepared to be told that other teams simply wear tighter jerseys and that it’s therefore all an optical illusion. I’m also happy to be told that our players are lifting more tin in the gym than ever before. All I’m saying is that I hope it’s something the coaches and their fitness gurus are keeping an eye on.

Number 10

This is probably not a particularly popular view, especially after his kicking heroics at the death, but I wonder if we’d be better playing Beauden Barrett ahead of Aaron Cruden. For me it’s partially related to the ‘Bulk’ point I’ve just made. Barrett is a more physical player who still possesses similar kicking and passing abilities to Cruden. I also think Barrett is the better defender of the two. Cruden seems like a top bloke, and he had some lovely touches in this most recent test, but I wonder if opposition teams sometimes target him as the weak link due to his physical stature.

Depth/Problem positions

There are some positions in which we are blessed with exceptional depth. But there are some roles that do not have so many capable understudies available. I’ve mentioned loosehead prop already. To that I add hooker (assuming Andrew Hore is done), number eight (until Jerome Kaino can prove he’s as good as he was or Victor Vito finds a way back), midfield backs (Ryan Crotty does his job, and does sport tremendously masculine facial hair, but he’s a journeyman and I really don’t think Ben Smith has the physicality in his game to play centre; hurry back SBW)

But overall, well done to the All Blacks. A perfect season (in terms of results) is a phenomenal achievement. If 90% of overseas journalists are picking on you and trying to find fault in everything you do, you must be doing something right!

Rugby League ‘World Cup’

As expected it’s a Kiwi/Aussie final. It was almost an Aussie/Pom final, but it’s not.

International rugby league really is, as Tony Kemp suggested, a debacle. Eligibility rules, if they exist at all, are flouted left right and centre. Kiwi squad member Sam Moa played for Tonga in April. Petero Civoniceva only finished playing for Queensland and Australia in the recent past but he’s been leading Fiji in this tournament. Tenuous ancestral links have resulted in the USA and Italy fielding half-decent sides. You even have the silly situation of Jarryd Hayne having played for Fiji at the last World Cup then scoring three tries against them while playing for Australia this weekend. Indeed, the NRL has apparently supplied 174 of the players representing ‘their’ countries at the tournament and another handful have made the trip from lesser Australian domestic competitions. So it’s essentially a case of Australia vs. New Zealand and England.

Then, bizarrely, tournament coverage rights have been priced in such a way that Radio Sport are not providing any match coverage and in England the BBC is only broadcasting matches featuring England while all other matches are being shown on some random pay channel that almost nobody has access to. Gee, that’s the way to grow an international sport….

So what to do? Well, start with eligibility. State that from [insert date here] players will only be permitted to represent one country. This will almost certainly result in some players delaying declaring their eligibility for a country other than Australia or NZ until later in their careers. And that would mean the next World Cup might have a diluted pool of players available for selection. But that’s OK, because taking a longer-term view would be good for the game and would, hopefully, provide some depth and quality in the Island nations’ own teams, not just for New Zealand and Australia.

Till next time,

SG