Will the Dominators please stand up?
It’s now the ‘Corby Cup’
OPINION: The last time the All Blacks played with such verve and excitement that it seemed the chasing pack was wasting its time was in Durban on October 9, 2016.
They put the Springboks to the sword and it was magical. Yes, the South Africans were at a low ebb but the All Blacks were still a joy.
Since then, nine tests and six wins. Since then, occasional bursts of brilliance but a few question marks too.
Since then, plenty of little digs from agent provocateur Eddie Jones but probably not enough sustained quality to dismiss those quips outright.
It began against the Wallabies at Eden Park in late October. The final score was 37-10 and much of the game was overshadowed by Michel Cheika’s subsequent press conference but if you look closely at the contest a few worries were beginning to emerge.
The All Blacks scored three first-half tries but Beauden Barrett’s suspect goalkicking kept the scoreline to 15-10 when they should have been 12 points clear.
Big Wallabies lock Rory Arnold trampled over the otherwise excellent Matt Todd on the way to the tryline. It was not the only physical contest lost up front.
Then it unravelled against Ireland in Chicago. Joe Moody was sent to the bin for a tip tackle. Depth in a few key positions Wallabies great Joe Roff has jokingly renamed the Bledisloe Cup the ‘‘Schapelle Corby Cup’’ in honour of its long absence from Australia.
The comment relating to the convicted drugs smuggler and the trophy contested by the All Blacks and Wallabies each year came at the annual Gold Coast Rugby launch, according to a report in Queensland’s Courier Mail.
Roff joked that the giant silver trophy had been dubbed the Schapelle Corby Cup by some rugby wags because ‘‘it was supposed to go away for a couple of weeks and it’s been gone for 20 years’’.
He was doing the Wallabies an injustice with the All Blacks domination of the trans-tasman only lasting 15 years – so far.
Still, that’s two more years than
looked like an issue when the All Blacks had to cope without Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock. Cool heads when the heat went on were also absent.
Chicago is why the argument about the Lions ‘finding’ flaws in the All Blacks must be dismissed.
Those cracks were already there - after 100 years of trying the Irish put 40 points on the All Blacks, for goodness sake. Two Corby spent in prison or on parole in Bali after being found guilty of bringing marijuana to the Indonesian holiday island.
Corby returned to Australia this year after her original 20-year sentence was reduced. She was arrested at Bali’s international airport in 2004.
weeks later they may well have repeated the win had Jaco Peyper sent off Malakai Fekitoa.
The Lions confirmed there were issues, they did not discover them. That difference is significant.
The Irish loss was supposed to be the wake-up call that would provide lessons to take into the Lions series. But that did not happen.
The poor discipline was still there - and costly. What about the inability to take control of games under pressure? Again, this was an issue during the Lions series.
The most important part of the Ireland game happened when the All Blacks had dragged themselves back into the contest and looked ready to come home strongly in the last 15 minutes. But it was the Irish who grabbed the game by the neck again. It was as if players were looking around and asking, ‘Where’s Richie?’
So where have the dominant All Blacks gone?
There are two possibilities. The first is that a statement All Blacks game awaits in Sydney and they will put 25 points on the Wallabies in a performance of accuracy, rigour and controlled aggression. That’s a plausible outcome.
Super Rugby showed that New Zealand still leads the way. There are players outside the All Blacks squad that other international coaches would give up their children for.
The second is that while the All Blacks still head the pack - and they clearly do - last year’s Rugby Championship was something of an illusion and the subsequent tests were a return to normality.
Test rugby should be hard. The All Blacks should find themselves tested, physically and mentally.
There should be periods in games where the All Blacks are under pressure. And this year, especially against the Springboks, we might see more of that.