Dominance of All Blacks drawsws comp comparisons with Harlem Globetrotters

Like watching Brazil. That’s how many people who have been steamrollered by this current all- conquering All Blacks side have described their brand of rugby football and you can see where their victims are coming from.

The All Blacks have just set a record of 18 consecutive Test wins, beating Australia by a score of 37- 10. That ensured their place in history as the best Test- playing nation on the planet. New Zealand beat their own Test record. They set a benchmark of 17 wins with their run during the 1960s, and the Springboks in the late 1990s.

Jason Robinson, a Rugby World Cup winner himself in 2002, was clear on his view of the All Blacks as they went into their final, one in which they became the first team to retain the Rugby World Cup when they followed up their 2015 win with one in 2011.

The craziest thing is that this All Blacks team have had to deal with great tumult in the middle of their record run. The World Cup winners of 2015 were decimated immediately after the tournament. They lost the man known as the greatest player in world rugby, Richie McCaw, for starters.

McCaw was then captain, many say the greatest the game has ever seen, and also the most capped rugby player of all time with 148 appearances for the All Blacks since 2001. He bowed out from his international career at the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup in England in 2015. As anyone who watched him before might expect, he won.

And with him won the rest of the retiring quartet of Dan Carter, Kevin Mealamu, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith. The least heralded of those was Smith, a man who amassed 93 caps for the greatest international side ever seen in world rugby, but the others had reputations that preceded them before they went to play in France – and in doing so retire their eligibility for the All Blacks, being based outside the nation.

Carter remains the record scorer in international rugby; Nomu was an inside center of 102 caps; Mealamu was a hooker of 131 caps. Each of them would walk into any other national side but the All Blacks lost five such titans in the middle of their devastating run – and they have not looked back.

The All Blacks have beaten 18 lineups during their record run and become the only nation to win the Rugby World Cup along the way. Then there is realization that rugby fans are not watching the equivalent of Brazil anymore, this is the Harlem Globetrotters.

Their opposition before the end of the year – Ireland, Italy and France – will soon see.