Rout is like getting socks for Christmas
Many unanswered questions from All Blacks’ thrashing of Canada
It can’t be a bad thing that the All Blacks annihilated Canada. It certainly wasn’t a bad thing that after a first half that was a million miles an hour but often painfully inaccurate, the All Blacks made some refinements in the second half and scored for fun.
It wasn’t a bad thing that they were still full of running late in the game or that they effortlessly found space by holding their shape and trusting what they proved once again is an exceptional array of skills across the team.
Plenty of heavyweights haven’t managed to look anywhere near as innovative when they have been tasked with dispatching the so-called minnows of the Rugby World Cup.
England struggled to put away the USA and Tonga; Australia were all over the place for an age against Fiji and South Africa laboured for an hour against Namibia with nothing memorable to show for it.
So the All Blacks have again set the bar at the highest level in the business of going about their business against opposition that don’t by right or reputation instil in their opponent the inherent mental edge test football requires.
Ask Ireland, such small mercies shouldn’t be taken for granted. But nor should they be over-analysed or used as any basis to predict what lies ahead.
The win was not tournamentdefining or overly valuable in the greater scheme of things. It’s impossible to extrapolate much from a romp against the 22nd-ranked team in the world and apply it to a knockout match.
No one who makes the last eight will give the All Blacks as much space as Canada did. No one will have such a weak scrum or iffy lineout.
No one will miss first-up tackles as often as Canada did and this isn’t to degrade them for they played exactly in line with their ranking.
But the tournament will change markedly in a few weeks so there is no point in trying to find too much from the performance in Oita and make big claims on the back of it.
Space will disappear and the intensity will rise so what the All Blacks got out of beating Canada was a sense of satisfaction that the shape and flow of their attack is bedding into the extent now it feels natural to them.
Even allowing for the acres of space they were afforded, there was still a flow to things — an obvious ease with what they are trying to do and a natural order to things.
Beauden Barrett and Richie Mo’unga popped up where ever they felt like it and no one got spooked by the interchangeability of it all.
That was the big achievement of the night and also the energy and intensity they brought.
We shouldn’t go turning our noses up at qualities such as intent and attitude. They are kind of what matters and they typically go a long way towards getting the job done in test matches.
We shouldn’t take them for granted either — attitude and intent don’t just magically materialise on the night, but are the product of days of craft, sweat and appropriate attention to detail.
Again, just ask the Irish about the dangers of assuming that players will turn up in the right frame of mind just because they are expected to.
So to see the All Blacks maintain a desire to play structured, hightempo rugby that was layered with respect for an opponent, was like getting socks at Christmas — not something to be ecstatic about, but worthy of grateful acknowledgement.
But the danger of getting socks is that it leaves a disappointing taste because you were hoping for more. And that was true with this All Blacks performance.
The accuracy they wanted never materialised. They dropped too much ball. They threw too many poor passes and for all that we can admire their ambition and vision, they let themselves down with their finishing and basic execution.
It was sloppy at times. It was wild and hurried when it didn’t need to be and that will disappoint them.
The game against Canada was a chance for them to not just embed the basic shape of what they want to do later in the tournament, it was a chance to hone the skills and perform them with the sort of clinical edge that is going to be required to win this World Cup.
That never happened and so while we had it confirmed that the All Blacks can be marvellously inventive and bold and that they can play at their chosen pace for as long as they like, we still don’t know whether they have the polish and precision to make everything click.