Ireland are welcome to the Cup favourites tag
When it comes to the flagging All Blacks, don’t panic. Wait until the World Cup in Japan in September, then panic. At least after being suffocated by Ireland on Sunday, the All Blacks probably won’t go into a World Cup as favourites for a change.
Remember Australia in 2003 when Carlos Spencer offered up his intercept pass to the burgling Brumby, Stirling Mortlock. The ABS were favourites then, if only because winning England captain Martin Johnson later said New Zealand was the one team he hadn’t wanted to face. Next year, Ireland can be the bookies’ top tip and see how they like it.
It cannot be dismissed that for Sunday’s test, Ireland was missing four key players.
Picture the All Blacks without Aaron Smith, Ardie Savea – yes, or Sam Cane – or Jack Goodhue.
We must now question whether the coaching clique of Steve Hansen and Ian Foster are starting to run out of tricks when confronted by stultifying, suppressive defences.
It started with the British (and Irish, of course) Lions last year when the All Blacks made tough work of responding to the beefy blighters.
The Springboks got stuck into our men at Wellington in September and, while the All Blacks eventually threw that one away, they have since had two less-than-great escapes against the Boks and England.
Posting 40 against the down-at-their-luck Australians isn’t helping.
In Britain, they sell out stadiums whatever the style of rugby because the outcome is everything and they have populations. Sunday’s test was one of tension and pummelling attrition and yet Sky’s Steven Bates had the gall to call it ‘‘a really wonderful spectacle’’.
Afterwards, when Hansen fronted for his interview, he was outwardly at peace and yet his tie was unusually askew, perhaps reflecting the inner stress.
Earlier this season, Hansen’s All Blacks had seemingly uncorked the indomitable way forward: all-out sparkling attack from deep. That encouraged Jordie Barrett to hurl the ball infield, to Willie le Roux at Wellington, and since then they have had second thoughts.
It is also a moot point whether Josef Schmidt would coach the same way if given the tiller of the All Blacks with their inherent flair.
Losing to Ireland was similar to falling to Les Tricolores. We can stomach that, outside World Cups. The real mountain was beating England and yet overcoming the imperialists probably soaked up a lot of fuel.
The same desperation to win applies to Ireland against anything English. Ireland was subjugated by England for 800 years until the Irish Free State was born in 1922.
Having covered the All Blacks’ 60-15 trouncing of Ireland in 1997, it seemed then the greens were rugby’s spent force and I was happy to sympathetically hum Ireland’s Call along with the crowd at Lansdowne Road, envious New Zealand did not have a similarly inspiring song.
Apparently on Sunday the All Blacks were jaded. The season was long, but they had had healthy breaks before playing Australia at Yokohama and after that. If they were fatigued, then blame the quite awful, too long Super Rugby.
They again erred in posting the pint-sized Damian Mckenzie at fullback against teams with heavy bombers. It also rankles us patriots that our heroes were taken down by a New Zealand coach – and Bundee Aki might have ratcheted down his post-match celebrations too.
NZ Rugby must reset its succession plan, which has Foster as the 2020 coach-elect. While the World Cup result might count, Hansen’s tenure stretches back to 2004 and is probably enough. If NZ Rugby has any sense, they will dial up Dave Rennie and Schmidt, who has always said he wants to return home, even if there are different pressures at All Blacksville. When Ireland loses, it’s all right – even when the All Blacks win they get roasted.
Danny Lee’s duck
Strange goings-on with Ryan Fox being able to pick his partner for the World Cup of Golf in Melbourne this week.
After Danny Lee pulled out citing travel factors, Fox was New Zealand’s top-ranked player and thus permitted to pick a mate and so he went for one of yesterday’s men, 43-year-old Mark Brown.
It was rank for Lee to pull out a week from the event when he had known since September he was in the team. Maybe New Zealand really was only his fast track.
Two years ago, Scot Russell Knox picked his best friend Duncan Stewart and said he didn’t care what people thought. They bombed.
A pity the NZPGA couldn’t have intervened and gone for the future, namely Nick Voke, who has won three times in China and is off to the Web.com Tour in the United States, or Ben Campbell.