These ABs would have 'belted us' - Foxy

Monday, 10 September 2007

Ever the realist, Grant Fox does not view the past with misty-eyed romanticism.

Fox was the points-scoring machine in the New Zealand All Blacks side who won their only World Cup to date in 1987.

A pragmatic flyhalf with no frills, Fox kicked 17 of New Zealand's 29 points in the final against France and totalled 645 in his international career.

The 1987 team led by David Kirk were a fine side. Over the next two years under Wayne Shelford they touched greatness. How, Fox was asked, would they have fared against modern day professional teams?

"They'd belt us," Fox said without hesitation in an interview in London as the All Blacks prepared in Marseille for their latest tilt at the elusive William Webb Ellis trophy.

"I saw some video clips recently in New Zealand of us playing in the World Cup final and we were small and we were skinny and we had those awful shorts that were so high, it was embarrassing to watch.

"In our era we were a pretty useful side. But if we took us as athletes then and the way the game was played then, and put us up against these guys they would kill us. They're bigger, stronger, faster, fitter."

Comparisons over the decades with the vast changes in diet, equipment and training are meaningless in most sports and particularly so in rugby union which was still an amateur game in Fox's day.

Fox instanced Bert Cooke ("nine stone wringing wet"), the electric centre in the 1924 side, and Colin Meads, voted by the New Zealand public as the greatest All Black of them all, as players who would be outstanding in any era.

"Colin Meads would be a great player today. But he would play six, he wouldn't be tall enough for a lock now although in his day he was huge," Fox said.

"If you took a lot of the players from that 87, 88 and 89 side and put them in a modern day environment they would be great players today."

The Berlin Wall was still standing when New Zealand last won the World Cup and Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. Did Fox think on June 20, 1987, that his nation would still be waiting for a second trophy 20 years later?

"If I was brutally honest, no," he replied. "In New Zealand the public are desperate for it, of course. In a funny way they're almost more desperate than the players.

"There will be a lot of relieved people in New Zealand if we succeed this time around. If not? It will just be four more years." – Reuters