12 is the ABs winning number
It is perhaps appropriate that Ian Foster and Mel Meninga have spoken about the possibility of playing a hybrid rugby game between New Zealand and Australia’s league Kangaroos. Some of us thought it had already happened. Ever since the bloody birth of professionalism the union game has been mutating into a grotesque version of league.
Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the midfield. The position of second fiveeighth or inside centre was once a position of grace and subtlety. You need look no further than Michael Cameron Henderson Gibson, perhaps the finest back to ever wear the green of Ireland.
A correspondent wrote back in the 1970s:
‘‘It was a sad moment when Gibson left the field . . . New Zealand have always regarded Gibson as the greatest midfield back ever to tour their country from the British Isles. It really was remarkable how many fathers I overheard saying to small boys, ‘That’s the greatest back ever to come to this country,’ in that tone of hushed respect people use when they are standing in church.’’
The reverence was well-placed. The mighty Colin Meads said after the Lions toured New Zealand in 1971: ‘‘Gibson’s presence in the Lions backline was the most frustrating influence of all.’’ Meads was always a very shrewd judge of a player.
Gibson was a superlative footballer. He was blessed with startling acceleration and an artist’s hands, but the greatest gift of all was his mind. Gibson was always a few plays ahead of everyone else on the pitch. That is what Meads found so frustrating. Gibson saw the All Blacks’ threat before it had even showed itself.
And yet, and yet, I wonder how ‘the Gibson man’, as Cliff Morgan once called him, would get on in today’s game. Would he be obliterated by the heavy machinery that rugby league defences and influences have now assembled in the midfield of the union game. Would Gibson, feathering his oars in a choppy sea, be mowed down by another super tanker too big to change its course.
The fact is that every Rugby World Cup final from 1991 to 2015 was won by the side with the heavier ‘centre combination.’ And although South Africa won last year, they were not exactly lightweight in the middle. Damian de Allende weighed in at 101kg. And most fair judges would rate de Allende and Samu Kerevi, weighing a mighty 108kg, as the most influential number 12s in the tournament.
This is a problem for Foster he cannot possibly ignore. When New Zealand won the RWC final in 2011 and 2015 they had Ma’a Nonu, backed up by Sonny Bill Williams, in the 12 shirt. Both men weighed in at 108kg, comfortably in boxing’s heavyweight category. And in the 2015 final, Williams came on for Conrad Smith giving New Zealand even more heft in the middle.
T J Faiane played outside both men for the Blues. ‘‘There are subtle differences in how they play. But they’re both big men, they both want contact, defensively and on attack, so as a centre, you’ve got to adjust in terms of running off their shoulder,’’ he said.
Modern cups have been won by the country which has dominated contact. England blew the All Blacks away physically in last year’s semifinal and at just 96kg you wonder if Anton Lienert-Brown is weighty enough to be a modern international 12. It is a weighty issue for Foster.
Faiane, who I suspect will best eventually be served by a return to centre, tips the scales at 92kg. Even Ngani Laumape, who admittedly punches well above his weight, is only 97kg. It will be very interesting to see which of the three is picked to represent the North against the South, and Jack Goodhue, at the end of August.
One thing that the whole of New Zealand will hope for is a coach who can make up his mind. The great insanity of the last cup, and perhaps the issue that cost the All Blacks more than any other, was the vacillation at 12. Foster must surely decide now on Goodhue, at 101 kg, as the man to play outside Richie Mo’unga.
He cannot repeat past mistakes. It was bad enough last year bringing in Mo’unga at 10 a year too late. But then-coach Steve Hansen then paired him with Williams, then LienertBrown, then Williams, then Ryan Crotty, then Williams, then Lienert-Brown for the quarter and semi, and back to Williams for the third place play-off. It was a muddle.
Mo’unga and Williams were a very successful combination. Mo’unga and Laumape also played very well together against Japan in 2018. But Mo’unga and Lienert-Brown played on a losing team in two out of those three matches. Mo’unga has many sublime gifts, but in the modern international game he needs a physical presence at his shoulder.
Hopefully, the country has learned from past failures. In 2003 and 2007 Aaron Mauger and Luke McAlister weighed in at 93kg. They were not small men. But neither satisfied the modern obsession with the gain-line. LienertBrown, a super footballer who is more suited to centre, suffered the same fate.
We can be wistful. We can yearn for union to reclaim some of its former beauty. We can luxuriate in the memory of men like Gibson and ABs second-five Warwick Taylor, another who used brains to overcome brawn. But all the evidence says that Goliath wins international matches, Goliath wins RWCs.
We used to talk about the crucial spine of a rugby team – 2, 8, 9, 10 and 15 – but the influence of league has changed the numerology. 12 is now as important a number as any. It’s an abundant number, a sublime number, a highly-composite number. 12 Olympians, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 jurors, 12 days of Christmas, 12 months in a year. There is a deep magic, an old magic in the number 12.
Gibson was a man who could bend perception on a rugby pitch. Sometimes Goodhue has some of the same mind-altering influence. Perhaps neither man thinks of themselves as a 12 first and foremost. But in that number the magic lies.