Discovering how NZ dominate rugby worldwide

AUSTRALIA didn’t really stand a chance. They were up against statistically the most successful sporting team in human history. New Zealand’s rugby team has a win rate over the past 100 years of more than 75 per cent, and with their World Cup victory on Oct 31 they have become an inspiration for businesses and individuals off the pitch, too.

The All Blacks’ 34-17 win at Twickenham meant they became the first team to retain the trophy. It was their third win, starting in 1987 when they won the inaugural tournament on home soil. The other teams to have been champions are Australia and South Africa (both twice), and England.

But go back to 2004 and things were not looking so good for New Zealand. Results were slipping and the men in black had just come last in the Tri Nations championship, suffering the indignity of coming below South Africa as well as local rivals Australia.

The situation was so grim that venerated captain Tana Umuga was threatening to quit and a drinking culture had penetrated the squad. Then something changed.

As detailed by James Kerr’s book on the winning culture of New Zealand rugby, Legacy, the cornerstone of the team’s recent success under coach Graham Henry and now Steve Hansen, is a simple mantra: “Better people make better All Blacks.”

And since that mindset change, the tiny island in the south-west Pacific with a population of just 4.5 million people has again dominated world rugby and become an inspiration for all those seeking managerial and performance success.

“Anybody who is looking to get stuff done and gain competitive advantage in what they do, whether as an individual or as a business, surely has to look at the example of the All Blacks,” Kerr said yesterday.

“After a crisis they rebooted their culture and they started with values and getting the base right with the essential idea of being a good person and becoming self-sufficient.”

Kerr’s book, which saw him spend five weeks following the team in 2010, studied the spiritual and practical foundations of the country’s re-emergence as rugby’s dominate nation. In it, he suggests 15 lessons the rest of us can learn from the mighty New Zealanders.

He admits that this management speak can sound “pink and fluffy” but that the All Blacks’ transformation is based in a “very powerful sense of being a team” and “forming a close community” that is determined to leave the “jersey in a better place”. – The Independent