THERE IS NO ALL BLACK MAGIC... IT’S ALL DOWN TO HARD WORK
THEY are completely obsessed with it,’ Peter Bills says over a cup of coffee in a city centre hotel last Thursday morning. ‘Housewives, clergymen, you could go to the best school in Auckland, I could have gone to the worst school in Christchurch and the one thing that will bind us together is the All Blacks. They are born with the game. Go into any bar in New Zealand and it’s the first thing that you will talk about. There is nowhere else in the world that has that kind of obsession with the game. Nowhere.’
Having spent more than four decades reporting on rugby, Bills decided three years ago to answer the sport’s greatest question. Why do New Zealand — a small nation of less than five million people with limited resources — utterly dominate the game.
They took some convincing. Bills initially approached New Zealand rugby CEO Steve Tew during the 2015 World Cup. They were cold on the idea of an Englishman delving into the reasons behind their success. But they eventually came around and he had access to everyone. From Steve Hansen to Richie McCaw to Beauden Barrett.
And he discovered there’s no magic formula. Just hard work and a commitment to the basics and skills of the game. ‘Jerome Kaino said it to me, that from the age of six, all coaches are concerned about is can you control the ball, can you pass it properly.
‘They are passing the ball 20 times a day, and they have to get it right 20 times out of 20. And if you went to an All Black training session here in Dublin, they are doing the exact same thing. If you do that every single day since the age of six, you are going to get pretty good at it,’ Bills says.
There can be dangerous elements to an obsession, though. Bills doesn’t shy away from the unsavoury aspects of the Kiwi game, especially the win-at-allcosts mentality that can result in heinous acts on the field, never more so than the infamous spear tackle on Brian O’Driscoll by Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu 90 seconds into the first Lions test in 2005.
‘They could have broken O’Driscoll’s neck. He was a fraction from being paralysed. And the Lions missed a golden opportunity. They could have said we are not playing against those two guys. Either they are suspended or we are going home.
‘That would have been the game of rugby taking a stand and saying we are not taking this anymore.’
If New Zealand cross the line at times, nobody thinks as deeply about the game as the Kiwis. As Bills points out, their legendary No8 Brian Lochore came to world rugby, or the International Rugby board as it was then, in 2004 and told his concerns about head-high tackling.
‘That was one of the most revealing things. Brian Lochore came to the IRB in Dublin back in 2004 and said that this tackling above the shoulder has to stop. It is going to cause problems down the line. And this was coming from a New Zealander, who was no wimp.
‘He was 14 years ahead of his time, if we look at the debate going on now. And you have to wonder how many people have suffered serious concussion in those 14 years that will come back to haunt them. And they mightn’t have if the IRB had listened to Lochore back in 2004.
‘It shows that New Zealanders understand the game better than anybody. They think more deeply about it than anyone else and that is why they are so far ahead of the curve and ahead of the world when it comes to the game of rugby.’
FOR two decades, the All Blacks aura was tarnished by repeated failures at the World Cup. Attitudes changed and as Bills discovered, it wasn’t Graham Henry or Steve Hansen who was responsible for that but Gilbert Enoka, a mental skills coach, who Henry has called the backbone of New Zealand’s entire success.
‘They were the best team in the world most days, and they won most days, but they couldn’t get over the line in the World Cup. Why was that? And it was because they had become arrogant,’ Bills says.
‘They broke everything down after they failed in 2007. Every single thing, and they felt that maybe they were arrogant. And there were plenty of All Black sides through the 1990s that you looked at them and you thought you are going to have a problem getting through the dressing-room door because your head is too big.
‘They were arrogant. Even the Kiwis say that now. They learnt humility and the one person who has been key to that is Enoka. And it is extraordinary because most of the world has never heard of him. But he preaches the mantra of humility to the players all the time. And the more humble that New Zealand have got, the better they have got.’
There are other unpleasant aspects to the story. The way they have taken the best players from the Pacific Islands, without much payback in return, leaves a pretty sour taste.
‘You wonder what those island teams could be today if that process had never happened, yeah,’ Bills accepts.
‘But it is difficult because people have been migrating south from those islands for more than 400 years in search of a better life. What are you going to say?”
And rugby has played a part in integrating the different ethnic groups within New Zealand. Former
The more humble they got the better they got
Wallaby captain Andy Slack made the observation that it made for a sharp contrast with his own country and how they have treated their own indigenous people.
‘The integration of three distinct groups has been a remarkable achievement and rugby has been the driving force behind that,’ Bills states.
‘It has been an absolute triumph and they should be applauded for it. You could have had three totally disparate elements, but instead of which they come together under this great banner.
‘They live together and play together for the jersey, whether you are a white kid, a Maori or a Pacific Islander.’
When Bills went on a promotional tour in New Zealand a few months ago, he was questioned about his attitude towards the Haka. Someone even wondered why he was so against it.
‘I am not anti-the haka at all,’ Bills insists. ‘I just think they need to be careful with it. They are doing it too often.
‘Warren Gatland even said before the last Lions tour that before the first test, his players will have already faced the haka half a dozen times. The mystique is gone. They are almost obligated to do it now. Television wants it. Less is more applies here. I don’t think they should be doing it before every single game.’
Having spent five months in New Zealand and interviewed everyone from Hansen, who’s ‘a million miles from the gruff public persona’, to the late Colin Meads, Bills reckons that there is no end in sight to this domination of an entire sport by one small nation.
‘I don’t see anything that will change their dominance. They will lose the odd game. They should have lost in Twickenham and might lose in the Aviva, Ireland are good enough to beat them although it is hard to see them do it without Conor Murray. But if they met in next year’s world cup final, I don’t see why Ireland couldn’t win that game.
‘You are not playing 15 supermen. You are just playing 15 men. So they will lose the odd game here and there, like they did to South Africa recently. But will they lose the long-term dominance of the sport? I doubt it because there is no other nation in the world that is obsessed with the game like they are.
‘It is that obsession that drives the standards every single day. Steve Hansen talked about the pressure of being All Blacks coach. Every waking moment it is with you. Every moment, you are thinking about the All Blacks. And the whole nation is like that, so when you have that level of intensity, it is very hard to see how anyone else can catch up.
‘The game will change and evolve but New Zealand will simply evolve with it. They never stand still. By the time any country catches up with them, New Zealand have simply moved on. So, the dominance is here to stay.’