Kiwi charm proving PR hit in the capital
Dublin GAA share a sponsor with the All Blacks
NEW ZEALAND understand the requirements of greatness. They wear their legend easily.
Yesterday morning, Sam Whitelock led a group to visit a monument dedicated to the memories of the first World War in Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green.
The day before the biggest Test match of their season, it was a duty the team could easily have shirked.
But this modern All Black force is an entity that does the right thing time and again, off the field as well as on it.
Last afternoon, their captain Kieran Read gave a briefing on the side of the Lansdowne Road pitch.
In the stands, dozens of people looked on. They were competition winners, friends and family, explained a spokesperson for the team.
The All Blacks recognise that when they visit a country, it’s a big occasion and there is a clamour to be near them. People want to see them, to have their photographs taken with them. And they oblige.
Sonny Bill Williams sat not far from the sideline, alongside him three young boys who looked wowed in his presence.
An IRFU alickadoo fretted about the pitch and gestured urgently at the group horseshoeing Read to stay off the grass.
On it, the New Zealand players stretched and jogged and japed around, as Ireland had two hours earlier.
There was, though, an openness about the visitors that comes from both a keen understanding of their corporate might, but also a genuine ease with the pressures placed upon them.
Whitelock, for instance, is one of the most effective rugby players in the world, and when he spoke at the sculpture of the Haunting Soldier in central Dublin, he was talking less than 36 hours before an enormous match in his year.
The Dublin GAA players that appeared alongside him in St Stephen’s Green – the teams share a sponsor – go months without speaking in public.
That provides an insight into both New Zealand’s nous and the ridiculous detachment that has been forced in the relationship between GAA teams and wider Ireland. On a more localised level, the Irish rugby side have sounded more tightly wound before this match, as if the pressure is pricking the hosts more than their visitors.
The most notable feature of the Irish press conference yesterday was the curious attempt to explain Dan Leavy’s absence.
It started with mention of general tightness (which sounds like a baddy in the new Star Wars franchise), to talk of ‘a general movement amongst the players controlling their own information’.
Whether it is ‘general tightness’ that keeps Leavy out today, then, or if that information cannot be released owing to the mistaken belief that players’ fitness is a private matter, remained unclear.
A coherent policy on an issue of considerable importance is a matter the IRFU might usefully address before the Six Nations.
The other newsworthy feature of the briefing was Rory Best addressing the ongoing questions about his form – a topic fanned by his difficulties last week.
‘We looked through it and there were a few that couldn’t have been thrown any better and we still lost,’ he said of analysis of Ireland’s lineout malfunctions against Argentina.
‘You still feel those so obviously that shadows your thoughts on your game a little bit.’
Best is a captain under pressure to keep his place, a man who can settle much of the disquiet about his selection with a good performance today.
Read is a captain working in a very different environment. All leaders of the New Zealand team will be measured against Richie McCaw, two-time World Cup-winning captain and the embodiment of the modern All Blacks’ dominance.
The incumbent has nothing to compare to those achievements, but he has the consolation of being the best No8 of modern times, and the man most expect to be lifting the Webb Ellis trophy in Japan this time next year.
He also fits smoothly into the modern All Black image: humble, pleasant, and, when required, utterly ruthless.
‘Physicality and intensity wins Test matches,’ he said of today’s challenge.
‘We’re going to have to be right up there.’
That ability to break down a contest to its most meaningful elements is central to their reigning greatness. Simplicity is New Zealand’s secret.
They do what everyone else does, but usually very well and no matter what pressure they might be under.
‘You don’t want to be doing too much things different,’ said Read, when asked how the best team in the world prepare to face the second best.
‘It’s all about prepping the boys as best we can and getting us in the right space.
‘I feel we’re in a pretty good space right now mentally, so physically we’ve done the best we can as well.
‘It’s all about preparing ourselves to go out there and get the job done.’
They know well the shape of the Irish challenge, too. Read was asked about Ireland’s strengths, and opened his reply with the polite ‘many things, really’.
He then offered a description of a side based around structure and repeated drilling. It has annoyed Joe Schmidt in the past when his side is described as one reliant upon rehearsed moves.
But it is that kind of side Read and his team have prepared for, it would seem.
‘They’re a very structured side,’ he said. ‘In terms of how they hold onto the ball, they’re the best probably of the tier-one nations in the world.
‘They also have the ability to defend pretty strongly as well. They’re a pretty good side.’
Ireland will know precisely where they stand in rugby’s hierarchy by 9pm tonight, after the most important match they will play before the World Cup.
New Zealand, one suspects, know exactly what they are.