TEAM FIRST
THE ALL BLACKS ARE FULL OF WORLD CLASS PLAYERS, BUT THEY CAN’T ALL START OR EVEN BE ON THE BENCH. EVERY TEST, THERE ARE A HANDFUL OF MEN WHO ARE DISAPPOINTED BUT THEY HAVE TO LEARN TO ACCEPT THAT AND PUT THE NEEDS OF THE TEAM FIRST.
Central to the All Blacks’ success has been one non-negotiable priority – that the team must come first.
Think of heroic deeds by All Blacks and plenty come to mind. Richie McCaw playing through the World Cup with a broken foot. Jerome Kaino’s matchsaving tackle on Digby Ioane at that same tournament.
Dan Carter’s deadly boot too many times to recall. The list could go on and on and yet, maybe these aren’t really the most heroic moments within the All Blacks legacy.
These are just the moments that we see. Behind the scenes is where the true heroism can be witnessed because long before the team makes it on to the field, there are men who have had to do the hardest things.
Every test there are All Blacks left to deal with rejection. Every week there are players, world class ones at that, having to accept that they haven’t been selected to play. Everyone hopes that they will hear their name called to start or at least be in the match day 23, but not everyone can make it.
We are confident that everyone has bought into the 32 to be honest because that extra nine are just as important as the match day 23 in carrying the workload during the week.’ IAN FOSTER
Dreams are readily and easily smashed in less than a minute. So much hard work goes into making the All Blacks. More hard work goes into training once players get there and all the time, each week they are battering themselves, clinging to the hope they will be chosen to play. Everyone hopes they will be given the jersey they have dreamed of wearing in most cases for more than 20 years.
It can be a tense and difficult time. The potential is always there for bitterness to develop; for individuals to turn a little toxic and start corroding the environment.
But so rarely does it actually turn out like that. The All Blacks way is not to allow personal disappointment to interfere with the collective goal.
The team must come first is the core mantra of the All Blacks. Team comes first is the statement that is drummed into everyone by the coaches and senior players.
It’s the way things have to be. There can’t be quiet dissenters in the ranks. There can’t be antagonistic influences working against the team from the inside. There can’t be disgruntled individuals not giving their all because they feel slighted.
These sorts of problems may be prevalent in the workplace of most major corporations, but they would kill the All Blacks if they were allowed to fester.
Team first is a philosophy that everyone has to buy into. They can’t pretend to buy into it, or half-heartedly go along with it – the commitment has to be total. The culture has to be strong enough for everyone to believe that the team goal is more important than the individual’s aspirations.
Everyone has to feel connected to the mission and have a sense that they are able, regardless of what they are asked to do, to make a meaningful contribution.
Egos have to be put to one side. Individual pride has to be quickly mended. The All Blacks need all of their players – their entire squad – to be contributing towards the performance and it is in the selfless way that individuals do that every test which makes the All Blacks such a powerful force. These are the true acts of heroism.
“We are confident that everyone has bought into the 32 to be honest because that extra nine are just as important as the match day 23 in carrying the workload during the week,” said assistant coach Ian Foster in 2016.
“That’s our mind-set and it is a nonnegotiable in the camp. In our experience that is what suits us – that we can look at the energy levels and we can look at who is playing and how can we keep a performance going for the 80 minutes. We work hard on that messaging of the players but more importantly our leaders do a really good job of connecting everyone on the park to make sure they know how we play.
“But on the same side, we know we are going to have some disappointed players
because everyone wants to play. We are not denying that or putting our head in the sand and saying that doesn’t exist. But we don’t sulk.”
It’s okay for All Blacks to be disappointed, it’s just not okay for them to be consumed by that disappointment and dwell on it. That’s not an unspoken law – it is very much discussed because to wallow is to not put the team first. Besides, just because a player may not have landed the job they hoped for, they will still have landed a job and they are expected to do it. And they are expected to do it well.
Even if they haven’t made the match day 23, there is an expectation that players will give everything they have at training. There is a demand that they give of themselves selflessly to help prepare the others.
That could mean they are assigned the role of being ‘the opposition’ all week – asked to do things at training to replicate what the coaches think the team will encounter during the test.
It takes a bit of pride-swallowing and resilience to give so much when there is no glamour gig as a reward. It will be others who reap the public glory, who run out to the adulation of the nation.
But the team has to come first. It is non-negotiable. “There’s a rule in this team – you can sulk for a minute and then you’ve got to get over it and move on and do what’s best for the team,” Israel Dagg said last year.
He was referring partly to his own predicament the previous year when he had been dropped from the starting team and then subsequently from the World Cup squad. And also partly in relation to Julian Savea, who had been left out of the match day 23 for the second test against Wales.
“I’ve been in the same shoes, rooming with guys who have got opportunities and I’ve not played. You’ve just got to help them prepare. Jules has been doing that this week. Deep down he will be hurting. I’ve felt it and it’s not a nice thing, but it makes you stronger. I’m sure he’ll come back and bowl people over.”
Sam Cane is a young man who had to spend much of his early years as an All Black dealing with little playing time. He came into the squad as a 20-year-old in 2012, as the heir apparent to captain and openside Richie McCaw.
It was a hard role to play. He knew his game time was going to be limited. The skipper was going to play pretty much every minute of every game. And as a specialist openside, there wasn’t always need for Cane to be on the bench. To be in the starting XV, he was always going to
There’s a rule in this team – you can sulk for a minute and then you’ve got to get over it and move on and do what’s best for the team.’ ISRAEL DAGG
need for McCaw to be injured. To be on the bench, it would be a case of horses for courses, his selection dependent on whether the coaching staff felt they needed a specialist openside in reserve.
Each week was a genuine case of the unknown for Cane, but whatever his fate, he accepted it, relished and responded in the most positive way he could. “As a rugby player you are always aware of your strengths and weaknesses and trying to get better in the area that you are not so good at but keeping your strengths up at the same time,” he says.
“Deep down we are all competitive people in this environment and you are ultimately competing for a spot. But what overrides that is the team first and foremost thing so no matter who gets picked, who plays what for how long, you know that it is being done for the better of the team and whether you like that or not you suck it up because it is a bloody good team to be part of.
“It is not an easy thing to do but you have to be able to push that to one side and concentrate on what you can do to help the team. When I was in that role [nonplaying], I used to think on a Thursday that it was my last opportunity to help the team get the job done on Saturday. So you want to train really well, simulate what they are going to get on a Saturday and make sure you are doing all the little extras so that if something does happen, boom, you are ready to take your chance.
“For the first four years [with the All Blacks] I was behind the skipper so to say you thought this week was going to be your chance is a little hard. But I have definitely had experiences at the Chiefs when we were playing one or the other throughout the season and then come finals time, the other guy, which was Tanerau [Latimer], gets the nod. You get pretty disappointed, but then you would rather be playing than not playing at all so you have got to keep the perspective. And you also know that you could be on within two minutes.
“The nature is that you are disappointed but in your room, you put it to one side and take it on the chin and know that for that week, it is good for the team that the other guy plays. If anything it gives you the drive to work harder and get better.”
The All Blacks were getting ready to play Ireland in Dublin. It had become a huge test because two weeks earlier in Chicago, Ireland, for the first time in 111 years, had beaten the All Blacks.
New Zealand were under pressure. They had won 18 in a row coming into the Chicago test and then played poorly. Could they respond? Could they deliver what they needed in what was going to be an epic encounter?
There was particular pressure on halfback Aaron Smith leading up to that test. He had come home from South Africa earlier in the year after news broke of an
Deep down we are all competitive people in this environment and you are ultimately competing for a spot. But what overrides that is the team first and foremost thing...and whether you like that or not you suck it up because it is a bloody good team to be part of.’ SAM CANE
off field indiscretion. That incident saw him subjected to incredible media scrutiny and also resulted in him earning a one-test suspension, which effectively became two when the coaches decided not to pick him for the final Bledisloe test.
But Smith came back into the starting team in Chicago. He looked short of rugby and didn’t play well. He was given half an hour the following week against Italy, where he was better without really impressing.
There was mounting speculation that TJ Perenara would start ahead of him in Dublin. Perenara had played superbly in Smith’s absence and, to many, it looked as if he had earned the right to wear the No 9 jersey. Even Smith would have agreed but the selectors didn’t.
When the team was announced, despite the calls to make changes, Smith was named in the starting team. It would have been a hard one for Perenara to stomach, but as soon as he heard the team, he sought out Smith, shook his hand and then went about helping his teammate prepare as always.
He put aside his disappointment and threw himself into training.
He worked selflessly to help Smith analyse the Irish, work on the specific aspects that would be relevant in Dublin and do all that he could to help the team.
The following week, after Smith had again been quiet and a touch erratic against Ireland, Perenara was named to start against France. On hearing the news, the first person to congratulate him was Smith.
The roles had been reversed and Smith knew he had to shelve his disappointment the same way Perenara had the week before and get on with helping the team.
As head coach Steve Hansen explained in making the change: “I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to know that Nuggy [Smith] has struggled since he came back.
“In that first game he obviously hadn’t played for a while. The second game against the Italians he was better and he was better again against Ireland but team comes first and TJ’s taken that opportunity and played really well and we feel he deserves a start so he is going to get one.
“It is right for the team. We could have given Nuggy the opportunity and he has been through a tough time and clearly it has knocked his confidence a bit. He is coming back slowly. You can see it in him and this week in training he has been good. I am expecting him to come off the bench and play a big part when he comes on.”
It’s team first. Not sometimes, but always.