The trying times of Owen Franks
OPINION: We can exclusively reveal we have cracked the All Blacks’ covert campaign ahead of the Christchurch test against the Springboks.
Grainy images have been obtained from a low-flying drone duelling with Richie Mccaw’s helicopter for air space over the team training ground.
They reveal a revolutionary tactic hitherto hidden in the last 83 test matches.
The ruse is dubbed Operation Meat Pie – just to keep the forwards interested.
The ploy is executed when skipper Kieran Read rolls his eyes and barks: ‘‘Get Owie Over!’’
Out go elaborate lineout moves, carefully controlled rolling mauls, pinpoint wipers kicks and nifty wrap-arounds.
Forget the fancy pants stuff from Beauden Barrett, bits of brilliance by Ben Smith or the standard Savea bus crash.
In the best traditions of the 10-man game which suffocated New Zealand rugby prior to 1971BC (Before Carwyn), the gameplan will be to keep the ball exclusively among the gnarly forwards and give poor old Owen Franks his first sniff of a test tryline.
Any All Black individualist out to garner glory by scything through the wafer-thin defensive line or sidestepping seven Springboks is likely to last as long as Aaron Smith at the Tron.
This latest development is nothing new – backs and loose forwards have been setting up front rowers, on and off the field, for years. But the All Blacks call themselves a tight team and it’s time they delivered for their burly buddy.
Their devilishly simple strategy is to spurn penalty kick opportunities inside the South African 22, tap the slippery pill,
run it up the guts and get it into Franks’ big mitts a metre out from the line. Gravity should do the rest.
World Rugby are understood to be considering adding an extra clause to the six-point try legislation currently being trialled in the Heartland Championship. Any try scored by Owen Franks in the test arena should now be worth 10 points. Twenty if he converts it.
He’s got some catching up to do, after all.
The most important score by a Kiwi prop belonged to Tony Woodcock, whose 10 tries in 118 tests included the All Blacks only try in the 2011 Rugby World Cup final against France.
Franks isn’t the first All Blacks prop to go his entire test career without troubling the scorers.
Carl Hoeft, the Highlanders loosehead, never crossed the white chalk either. He’s now coaching the Waikato pack and is presumably instructing his charges as we speak that the tryline is nose bleed territory for any self-respecting front rower.
But let’s not be too hard on Hoeft – he played 30 tests. Franks is 83 not out, and on the brink of becoming the outright record holder for the most tryless tests.
Kees Meeuws, with 10 tries in 42 tests, dotted down on average once every 4.2 games, an average any English outside back would kill for.
The longest drought in All Blacks history must end now. Family bragging rights are at stake.
Big brother Ben Franks flopped over for two tries in 47 tests – both against Ireland, which is presumably why he’s playing for London Irish now.
Wilson Whineray, one of the few props (for obvious reasons) to captain the All Blacks crossed for two tries in 32 tests – both against Australia.
But Whineray did something no modern-day All Blacks prop has matched – he dropped a goal in a mid-week match in France.
That’s a whole new challenge, Owen Franks. First things first.