Hot as they come
Enjoy winning streaks while you can as they always come to an end.
It was a good weekend for another Kiwi coach in the Six Nations with Warren Gatland’s Wales surging back from 16-0 down at halftime to pip France 24-19 in Paris.
Wales’ 10th win on the trot prompted Gatland to offer what might be the definitive example of a hostage to fortune: “As a team, we have forgotten how to lose.”
Gatland may have been emboldened by the fact that Wales’ opponent this weekend is the tournament’s whipping boy, Italy. No doubt he also derives confidence from a favourable draw: this year, Wales play both England and Ireland in Cardiff.
But all winning streaks come to an end, usually about the time the media start dwelling on them. Last June, the Wallabies, of all teams, ended Ireland’s 12-game winning streak. A year earlier, the Irish had stopped England eclipsing the All Blacks’ record among major nations for the most consecutive wins (18), a run that was also ended by the men in green.
That even applies to the Black Ferns. Since losing catastrophically – 31-0 – to the hosts in the final of the 2018 Sydney Sevens, the Ferns have won 48 games on the trot, a run that has delivered a Commonwealth Games gold medal, the Sevens World Cup and victories in six consecutive legs of the World Sevens Series.
The 48th win, in Sydney last weekend, would have been as sweet as any in that it was an emphatic reversal of last year’s final, with the Ferns cleaning up Australia 34-10.
It’s a truly remarkable achievement given the frenetic, sometimes flaky, often fluky nature of sevens rugby. In sevens, a single mistake can decide a game and the generally fatuous assertion that “on their day any team can beat any other team” actually has some substance.
As exceptional as the Black Ferns are, their run will end. Eventually.