It’s not always sunny in the World Cup lead-up
The All Blacks captain should be dumped. The first-five’s not playing at test level. There are too many hasbeens in the team. New Zealand won one and lost one to South Africa, and scraped through against England. How can they win the World Cup?
No, I’m not writing about the 2023 World Cup — I’m recalling what was happening in 2014, the year before New Zealand’s magnificent World Cup victory.
Having reported at every World Cup, I can vouch that before New Zealand’s three Cup-winning tournaments, the mood of the rugby nation was far from sunny.
Here’s what it was really like in the lead-up to the Cup victories.
1986: Tears before bedtime
The upheavals in ’86 make any issues this year look like rainbows and unicorns.
Rugby tore itself into two factions. Andy Dalton would have captained an All Blacks tour to apartheid South Africa in 1985 but a court injunction forced its cancellation.
So instead, Dalton led a team of All Blacks, who called themselves the Cavaliers, to South Africa. At first, it didn’t work out that well. Dalton’s jaw was broken by a punch in the second match, they lost three out of four games against the Springboks and were banned for two tests when they got home.
Then the Baby Blacks, as a team with 10 new All Blacks was quickly dubbed, beat a good French side 18-9 in Christchurch and lost just 13-12 to Australia. But as soon as their ban ended, 10 of the Cavaliers were rushed back for the second and third tests against the Wallabies.
It wasn’t a happy merger. There was a squeaky one-point win and a 22-9 loss. In October, the All Blacks headed to France, where after losing the last test of the year, a group of bully boys from the Cavaliers rounded on Baby Blacks captain David Kirk, who “ended up sobbing in my room”.
Cavaliers leader Dalton was named captain of the 1987 World Cup squad but was injured at the first training. Instead, Kirk led them to victory in every match, and in a unifying act of staggering generosity, dragged Dalton alongside him when the trophy was presented after the final.
2010: The Hong Kong horror
The All Blacks smashed Ireland and Wales at home in June 2010 and swept the Tri Nations but lost 26-24 to the Wallabies in Hong Kong in October.
The most vicious backlash was against first-five Stephen Donald, who was subbed on in the last quarter for Dan Carter. In the last minute, Donald failed to find touch with a clearing kick. That resulted in James O’Connor scoring a try and kicking a conversion to win the test for the Wallabies.
The Kiwi knocking machine went mad and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph suggested Donald “was one of Australia’s best players”.
In the 2011 World Cup final against France, Donald kicked the winning penalty for the All Blacks.
2014: Pressure on legends
By 2014, Richie McCaw and Dan Carter were untouchable legends.
But there were heretics. Among the English media, it became a snide habit to say McCaw cheated. And then the opinion that McCaw was too old gained traction in New Zealand.
Carter had what was first described as a “sore leg” after the Crusaders lost 33-32 to the Waratahs in the 2014 Super Rugby final. It was actually a fractured fibula. Suddenly, in some eyes, he was injury-prone and a potential liability. He played just one test in 2014, against Scotland.
Coach Steve Hansen stuck with McCaw and Carter. They starred in a brilliant All Blacks campaign and won the 2015 World Cup.