All Blacks likely to cope better if we expect mice and not

World champions, yes. Chokers no more? We’ll see.

The All Blacks may have squeaked past France to break a 24-year hoodoo in the 2011 Rugby World Cup final at Eden Park, but the 8-7 win over a side they had whipped by 20 points earlier in the tournament was hardly a performance to suggest the mental demons from over two decades of big match failure had been banished.

The August 16 Rugby Championship opener in Sydney against the resurgent Wallabies — when the All Blacks chase a world record 18th consecutive test match victory — will provide a stern examination of their mental fortitude.

“That is going to be a challenge,” says seasoned sports psychologist Gary Hermansson.

A veteran of 100 first class games for Manawatu, Wellington and New Zealand Universities — including wins with Wellington over the touring Springboks in 1965 and British Lions in 1966 — Hermansson spent much of the past 15 years helping hone the mental skills of NZ’s top athletes.

Lions between World Cups and mice at the quadrennial global shindigs, the All Blacks, Hermansson hardly needs to say, have been huge chokers in the World Cup era.

Given the level of detail that goes into ensuring the men in black are in the best possible physical condition come the Cup, the problem, he says, must be mental. He believes the explanation is that the source of the players’ motivation shifts from a desire to do well to wanting to avoid failure. It’s a classic recipe for, well, a four-yearly meltdown against the French.

“You could say that every World Cup since the first one they have choked and struggled quite badly at stages,” Hermansson says.

“The best sporting performance happens when the mind and the body are in the present moment responding intuitively to whatever comes up right now. When you start getting too concerned about the outcome of an event you mentally

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