Aisle be Back: the rub of the Green

Well, as the song goes, it’s the end of the world as we know it – and I feel fine.

In fact, I don’t think there’s a better time than right now, in the early 21 st century, to be an All Blacksfan.

Thanks to Ireland, England. South Africa and the Lions – and no doubt, ourselves – New Zealand are now down somewhere with the better mortals. That is, a team which doesn’t have a sufficient edge to blitzkrieg its way to victory 90 per cent of the time.

So goodbye to the quest for the perfect game or those winning streak targets, or any of the other substitute motivations that the All Blacks, as number one, have used. Now the motivation is a brutal one – get better or lose the Rugby World Cup.

As a fan, there’s to me nothing better than to watch a game where you are pretty sure about one thing – that this could go either way. Oddly Ireland played so well on Sunday that it wasn’t like thatat all. They were always going to win.

So can the All Blacks steal a march one last time. Is there some new game plan being tweaked that will all fall into place and will unlock the stifling defences. Well, come back for the answers this time next year.

What I do know is that I grew up watching rugby in the 1970s when the All Blacks were not dominant, and every win was treasured. And the New Zealand rugby psyche was at its best when they were in a hole. I keep thinking of the second test in France in 1977; having dropped the first
test, no-one thought NZ could handle the formidable French pack in the second. Instead the All Blacks went for speed and innovation (No 8 Gary Seaar even kicked a penalty!) under coach Jack Gleeson and new skipper Graham Mourie. Short lineouts and moving the French pack around.

And then the same year when the All Blacks in the Lions home series were so outgunned in the scrum, they packed a three-man front row and nothing else. They also went for mobility.
So even in the ultra-analysed modern age of rugby, I’ve got more than a sneaking suspicion that the old DNA will come through.

It’s going to be edge of the seat stuff when we get underway, and then of course, there’ll be the endless speculation and pre-mortems (disssecting the corpse before it’s even dead) done before we even get there. Like I say, there’s never been a better time this era.

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We’ve had plenty of first takes on what went wrong on the (yet to be completed) Northern Tour. I defy anyone to say there’s anything definitive in all that.

But one theory I haven’t see, which I’ll toss into the mix, is that the All Blacks no longer have a fitness edge over the top sides.

That’s been pretty much a given for a decade, and behind I think, so many of those late wins where the losers can sustain themselves for 60 minutes – and then lose the plot.

There might have been very slight wobbles from Ireland in the last 20, but in the end they were going stronger than the All Blacks. In the old days, one of those shuddering cover tackles would have been missed. Game over.