The gospel according to Luke
Romano: It’s all about the top two inches
It wasn’t Vaea Fifita’s bursts down the left-hand touch, nor Lima Sopoaga’s goalkicking.
No, New Zealand fought back to beat Argentina in New Plymouth three weeks ago, because the Pumas possess a loser’s mentality. Most teams do when it comes to playing the All Blacks in New Zealand, according to lock Luke Romano.
Argentina have, famously, never beaten New Zealand in test rugby.
A 21-21 draw in Buenos Aires back in 1985 was as close as they’ve come, as their rugby writers well know.
They were very keen to gauge Romano’s thoughts on what makes the All Blacks so formidable at home and he didn’t leave them wondering, in Buenos Aires yesterday.
‘‘Obviously there is that history [of success] there at home but whether it’s us or whether it’s [that] the other teams that come to New Zealand are already beaten before they come there; that the other teams think like that, think that they’re not going to win,’’ Romano.
‘‘So even before they’ve got on their plane, they’ve beaten themselves. And that’s going back to your question about the mindset; rugby, a lot of it is about the top two inches.
‘‘A lot of the athletes round the world are pretty similar, they’ve all got the same attributes and can all do the same things, but it just comes down to that mental attitude and that mindset.
‘‘You just take the Lions. The Lions come over real confident and they beat us and had a draw with us.’’
It’s an interesting one. The Pumas are keen to take the leap from being nuisance value for 60 minutes, to actually kicking on and beating the All Blacks.
Romano’s probably right to say they don’t help themselves by not believing. But how do you believe when you’ve got no success to base your belief upon?
The All Blacks accept the odds are that they’ll lose to the Pumas eventually. They just aren’t keen for it to be at a sold-out Estadio Jose Amalfitani on Sunday morning (NZT).
‘‘We don’t go out there with a fear of having to defend that [unbeaten record] so much; it’s more of an excitement. It’s about excitement at us playing as good as we can and that’s our goal for Saturday,’’ All Blacks assistant coach Ian Foster said.
That excitement was evident in team training at the San Isidro
Club, Foster added, but he deflected all questions about which players might be most excited this week and who’d been asked to step
up, in the absence of some of the senior pros.
‘‘I reckon you’ll find the answer to that question on Thursday,
probably, when we name the team,’’ said Foster.
The wait will be slightly longer to hear when third-string halfback
Tawera Kerr-Barlow is farewelled to play in France.
‘‘Yes’’ was the answer from Foster, to a question about whether
the selectors had come to a decision. As for whether that would be before or after the end-ofyear tour, it was ‘‘not telling you’’.