Great teams to rival All Blacks
BRENDAN GALLAGHER analyses the suggestion that the current All Blacks are best team in history
If New Zealand beat Australia in Auckland on Saturday – and they haven’t lost at Eden Park against anybody for 22 years for heaven’s sake – the All Blacks will establish a world record of 18 consecutive Test wins which would, hopefully, bring a smile even to Steve Hansen’s face.
Some critics are saying that Hansen’s current team is possibly the best ever to grace the international arena and although the jury might still be out on that, there is compelling evidence to give substance to such a claim.
In the last 12 months or so New Zealand have retained the World Cup in fine style – the class of 2011 rather flopped over the finishing line if we are being brutally honest – and then without missing a beat waved farewell to four legends of the game and started playing even better.
Just six of those 17 wins to date have come on home soil, the All Blacks have become masters of the road trip and winning in hostile or neutral environments. Nothing, it seems, fazes them. The motivation, intensity and focus is always there.
After their RWC2015 triumph came a 3-0 series win of increasing brilliance against a resilient Wales which has been followed by a perfect six out of six record in the Rugby Championship with a try bonus in every game. They concluded that campaign earlier this month by inflicting a record 57-15 home defeat on their great historic rivals, South Africa.
Just when weary opponents hoped and expected a slight dip, the All Blacks have gone to another level. And all this, remember, has been achieved following the retirement en bloc of Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith. Double World Cup winner Sonny Bill Williams has also been absent, either away on Sevens duty or injured.
New Zealand have been playing a high octane brand of total rugby with the biggest point of difference between now and yesteryear – or even last year – being the ability of all eight forwards to run and pass equally well as their backs. The piano shifters are now also concert pianists.
To these eyes New Zealand also still look at least 10-15 per cent fitter than any other international side – despite protestations to the contrary by gasping opponents – and play at a tempo nobody can live with. Just occasionally a side can hold them until half-time or even up to 55 minutes but then, as night follows day, the floodgates open and the torrent of tries begins. The scoreline invariably takes on a cruel look in the final quarter To bestow upon them the “best ever” title is, of course, a subjective statement and we will examine some other contenders elsewhere but one semi-objective criteria we can employ is to ask whether there has ever been a time when more All Blacks would automatically make a World XV? Or put it another way how many players around the rest of the rugby playing world would get a sure-fire start for New Zealand? I’ve come up with just four. I’d have Maro Itoje, left, ahead of Sam Whitelock – which is no slight on Whitelock, just a huge thumbs up for the remarkable young Saracen and I would want Juan Imhoff on one wing assuming Ben Smith is playing fullback and not out wide. David Pocock gets the nod at seven ahead of Sam Cane or Ardie Savea although that selection is getting closer with every week. At 12, I would probably go with a fully-fit Owen Farrell ahead of Ryan Crotty mainly because the lack of a truly word-class goalkicker is probably the only potential weakness in this current All Blacks team, not that anybody really gets close enough to make goalkicking an issue. Jamie Roberts might also come into the equation as well at 12, but I’m going with Farrell. There are a few close calls. There is little to choose between Dane Coles or Argentina’s Gus Creevy at hooker, with Dylan Hartley not far behind, and the ageless Georgian back rower Mamuka Gorgodze is still a force to reckon with, for an hour anyway, and pushes Jerome Kaino close.
Alun Wyn Jones might also get in ahead of Whitelock – but not Itoje or Brodie Retallick – while Billy Vunipola has been wondrous for England recently at No.8, ditto Taulupe Faletau for Wales and Facundo Isa of Argentina. But when push comes to shove they still both give second best to the extraordinary Keiran Read, who has also taken to captaincy like a duck to water.
The bottom line is you could name nine or ten All Blacks in the World XV tomorrow and nobody could seriously question your choice, which is a dominance I can never recall in the modern era. Or ever.
The current unbeaten run has been of the highest possible quality but in truth it just tops up an endless succession of outstanding runs. Since winning RWC2011 New Zealand have played 65 Tests, won 60, drawn two and lost just three.
During that time, they have been on the end of just one proper hiding, that remarkable and, let’s be candid, totally unexpected 38-21 defeat at Twickenham in December 2012.
That’s a record that stands comparison with any in international team
years, New Zealand won 17 matches on the trot between September 1965 and July 1970 in the days when the Test calendar was much less crowded. Different times, of course, but to maintain such a winning momentum over nearly five years in the amateur days, with players coming and going, was some achievement although having all-time greats like Brian Lochore, Colin Meads, Chris Laidlaw, Kel Tremain and Ian Kirkpatrick at the helm probably helped.
South Africa, under Nick Mallett, are another side who reeled off 17 wins on the bounce between 1997 and 1998. That mini golden era was born out of the bitter disappointment of a Lions series defeat and three defeats in four games in the old Tri-Nations which made it five defeats in seven matches.
They came storming back over the following two years with their outstanding run taking in the 1998 Rugby Championship, although frustratingly for them the storm blew itself out before RWC1999.
Another notable run by South Africa was the 15 on the bounce between October 1994 and July 1996 which included their 1995 Rugby World Cup triumph. In charge for the first 14 of those Tests – and therefore retiring with an unbeaten record as South Africa’s coach – was Kitch Christie.
Then Namibia make a surprise appearance in the top ten of winning Test runs – with 14 between 1990 and 1992.
And those who might be tempted to cry foul and point at a weaker fixture list than Tier One nations should just tarry for a second and consider that within those 14 wins Namibia, a nation with perhaps ten senior rugby teams, pulled off doubles over Ireland and Italy as well as more routine wins over African opposition such as Zimbabwe and Kenya.
In those first few years after independence they were particularly strong with an experienced squad hardened by years of Currie Cup experience.
Another team sneaking into the top ten on 14 is England between 2002-03 although it’s a slightly misleading statistic.
Clive Woodward’s England were carrying all before them during this run when, wanting to give squad members game time ahead of RWC2003, they took the decision to field a second XV – in effect a Saxons XV – against a full-strength France side in Marseille.
The result was a 17-16 defeat with Paul Grayson just wide with a last minute dropped goal attempt.
England then won their next 10 games in a row so that side’s record could/should have been 25 wins in a row.