WHERE NO TEAM HAD GONE BEFORE

All Blacks prop Wyatt Crockett retired from international rugby this year after 71 tests. In this extract from his book Wyatt Crockett — CROCZILLA, Crockett talks about The Unbeatables season.

Things felt different in the All Blacks in 2012. I was a much better, much more self-assured person, with a family of my own to think about and two solid Super Rugby seasons behind me just to fall back on if doubts ever crept into my mind. The dynamics within the team had changed now that Steve Hansen had taken charge. Graham [Henry] was a different kind of coach with a very specific mission and you could feel the obsession with the World Cup whenever you were in his environment. Now the All Blacks had got the monkey off the back, there was a more casual patois that permeated the culture of the team. It was far more suited to the kind of person I was. In short, I felt I could be me.

Shag had a massive emphasis on bringing humour to the fore in everything we did. He often made the point that the job was important, but you had to have fun while you were doing it. There was no getting away from the reality of All Blacks life, though: we could laugh all we liked, but we were still expected to win. The June series against Ireland passed without incident, although in the second test in Christchurch the boys needed a low-flying duck of a dropped goal from Dan Carter in the 79th minute to get the win. Amazingly, after that close shave at Addington, the All Blacks would win the next test in Hamilton 60-nil. It was a special night for my mate Luke Romano who made his test debut. He played the house down, too.

With limited exposure to international game time, I still had a chance to get back to Canterbury during the Rugby Championship and to keep doing what I could for them. Tabai Matson had taken over as head coach and brought in a new assistant, Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson. It was my first experience of being coached by Razor and it’s fair to say I liked him immediately. The man was Peter Pan — he just refused to grow old — and he brought with him an infectious enthusiasm that the boys absolutely loved. They were a great combination as coaches and we would claim a fifth straight title that year, this time against Auckland in a home final. It was the first time any team had claimed so many consecutive championships.

In between provincial commitments I just fell into the rhythm of All Blacks life, knowing I would just have to bide my time and wait for an opportunity to present itself. That opportunity came courtesy of World Rugby’s decision to increase the number of reserves in tests from seven to eight. For the first time in my nascent international career, two props could now be picked on the bench. It was an absolute game-changer for me, especially as specialist looseheads were a rarity on a oneprop reserve rotation. All of a sudden, being solely a loosehead wasn’t such a bad thing. In fact, it was the best thing I could be. I was selected again for the end-of-season tour to Scotland, Italy, Wales and England, and I was ready to once and for all be an All Black with staying power.

I would play every game on that northern adventure, starting against Scotland in the opener before moving to the bench for the remaining three tests. I remember being more nervous ahead of the Italian match than I had been before my debut. The memories of that fateful day at the San Siro in 2009 all came flooding back to me that week, even though we were in Rome and a long way from the scene of the crime. I was mortified at the thought of something like that happening again after I had fought so hard to rid myself of the repercussions of my last ill-fated visit to that fine country.

I needn’t have worried. We were too much for the home side that day and I left the ground with my integrity intact and the pea still very much in the referee’s whistle. The Welsh test, too, finished with a comfortable victory and we moved on to London for the final challenge of the season. The week would take an unexpected turn, as we discovered following a Tuesday night dinner with a very expensive price tag.

Kieran Read, Luke Romano, Sam Whitelock and I had formed a very firm card school that season, spending countless hours playing hands of 500 and keeping score. Luke and I invariably won, and Sam would pack a sad and not talk to us for at least a day. He was a terrible loser, and because we knew that we also upped the ante for our regular dinners together. It had been agreed that the bill was always to be sorted by an old-fashioned game of credit card roulette. Sam also lost at that. All the time. It got so bad for him that his wife Hannah started to call to complain that the combined dinner bills for the four of us represented a family holiday or a new kitchen, or anything else that was more important to Hannah than four very hungry All Blacks forwards.

Fortunately, Sam managed to dodge the bullet this night, but I was not so lucky. I was left with the docket and would surely hear all about it from Jenna. It was a small fortune but a delicious meal, so at least I figured we had all got my money’s worth. Unfortunately, as we were all about to discover, it didn’t taste so good coming back up. That night, all four of us were struck down by a stomach virus that was making its way through the entire team. The whole floor of the hotel was a heaving mess of vomiting All Blacks, with team doctor Deb Robinson doing her best to isolate, medicate and comfort the sick and the needy. It was a hell of a scene, and barely a single team member was spared.

The worst of the symptoms had thankfully disappeared by the time we got to game day, but there was no way any of us was up to the challenge laid down by England that afternoon at Twickenham. They posted their highest score ever against an All Blacks side that day and handed us a record-setting 38-21 defeat. If I didn’t already have a sour taste in my mouth from the week’s illness, I certainly did after the post-match function during which a particularly obnoxious English fish head talked for eternity about his side being the best team in the world. I’m all for celebrating a big win, but the lack of graciousness really pissed me off. It must have annoyed Steve Hansen, too. It was his first loss as head coach, and he called it ‘the rock under the beach towel’. The very next year, we had a new challenge: we were going to be the first test team to go an entire season undefeated.

There have been many accusations made against the All Blacks over the years, but the one that frustrates the team more than any other is that they are an arrogant side. There is nothing arrogant about being aspirational or having the nexpectation to succeed. Aspiration is the result of imagination and imagination is the engine room for our hopes and dreams. An expectation to succeed is merely an invitation to work hard and to seek perfection in everything you do.

These are not bad things, and they are certainly not built upon arrogance. They are at the very heart of what All Blacks teams do: they picture success and they strive to achieve it.

In 2012, Steve Hansen implored us to prove that we were the most dominant rugby team in the world. All Blacks teams had always wanted to be that, but he allowed us to verbalise it and to live the qualities that the statement implies. In 2013, he wanted us to do what no other team had done before: win every single game we played. He was all about finding the next challenge, shooting for the next star, or climbing the next mountain. We were a team that needed to have a singular focus so we could walk towards it as one. We couldn’t stand still and keep performing. Inertia got you nowhere.

In June of that year Steve and Cronno pulled me aside on the Sunday before the first test against the French and told me they wanted to give me a crack at starting in place of Woody. They needed to give him a breather and thought I had earned the right to take his place, and to show them what I could do. It was a big deal for me, and I was keen to take that chance with both hands. The French were renowned for their scrummaging and this would be a serious test of my ability. I was up for it, and I couldn’t wait to hit the training paddock and prepare for the match.

The squad felt like it was in a great headspace. We had come through 2012 having a really good year so there was a lot of confidence that carried over into the 2013 season. Nine new All Blacks had been capped in Shag’s first year in charge — including the likes of Beauden Barrett, Aaron Smith and Brodie Retallick — and a further 12 would be added this season. They all brought their own energy to the established core of the team, and it seemed we just picked mup where we had left off, working hard to live the principles of togetherness that had been reinforced the year before.

We started that season with all of that in the bank and we kept adding to it. The on-field work was certainly up a level from the year before and we accounted for the French in the June series with relative comfort, beating them in Auckland, Christchurch and New Plymouth while playing some scintillating footy that would firmly establish some of the new brigade as fan favourites.

A slight concussion concern would see me miss the first test against Australia in Sydney (a 47-29 win) and with Woody back in the mix I was once again selected on the bench for the rest of the season. I was happy with the way I had played in the French series and adamant that I could earn a starting spot again if I put my head down and worked diligently on my game and on my body. I was still happy to be in the team and we just kept on winning. Argentina and South Africa were each defeated twice and the Australians were eventually seen off for a third time in a high-scoring test under the roof in Dunedin. Nine down, four to go.

In early November we embarked for the end-of-year tour to Japan, France, England and Ireland. I was handed another start in the test in Tokyo, our tenth win of the season, and we moved on to Europe knowing that the next three weeks would make or break our year. It was the perfect motivation really: three weeks, three big games, no second chances. It was a carbon copy of a World Cup victory equation: three weeks of sudden death with no prizes for second. We were absolutely fizzing to get among the French, and the very next weekend we also avenged the 2012 loss to England.

And that left the Irish game. The whole week we talked about nothing other than staying on task. After a long year it was very easy to fall into the trap of thinking about our holiday plans, but we couldn’t afford to let it slip now. We had begun the season by accepting a unique challenge. Now we were one win away from achieving our goal. As for me, well, I was a late call-up to start. Woody had been ruled out of the match and suddenly I was playing the game. I was supposed to be in Nuremburg with a group of the non-players doing a promotional visit with adidas. Jeff Toomaga-Allen went on the trip instead. He walked into his hotel room on his first day there and found a bounty of kit all waiting for him. All of it monogrammed with my initials. After all the talk, after every caution from the coaches and promise to ourselves to come out of the blocks and finish what we started, it was the Irish who got off to an absolute ripper and us who played catch-up for the entire second half. We trailed 7–22 at the break and inside the sheds we just broke it down and vowed to lift the intensity.

We clawed our way back, inch by inch, but by the 80th minute we still trailed by five points. By this stage I had been subbed and I sat on the bench with the others not knowing where to look. Surely, we had something left to give. We couldn’t blow this now. At that moment, and I will never know how they did it, the boys put together one of the most remarkable minutes of rugby I have ever or will ever see. And at the end of it, Ryan Crotty scored the try that would level the match.

We went absolutely berserk on the bench and then watched as Aaron Cruden sent the conversion wide. We were devastated for all of a couple of seconds. It turns out Cruds has an idiosyncrasy in his run-up where he looks like he’s about to step into his kick but instead holds his starting position. The Irish, desperate for their first ever win over the All Blacks, took off for the charge-down too soon. Nigel Owens ordered a re-kick and Cruds — and I cannot even imagine what must have been going through his mind — calmly slotted the kick. We had won the game 24-22 and created a slice of history for ourselves. We were the Unbeatables.