Winning ugly’s a skill

October 10th, 2007

The World Cup has once again shown the folly of a four year plan.

You don’t prepare to win a World Cup over four years. Ask Graham Henry or any other coach who has failed. You play the moment during the tournament and you hope the moment plays easy for you and your team.

England, at this World Cup, were in a state of chaos three weeks ago. France were a rabble in their opening defeat against Argentina and yet both are in the semi-final, while New Zealand, winners of 42 of 47 tests before the weekend’s Cardiff implosion, are gone.

The Springboks, this time last year, had lost five of their last six tests.

To win a World Cup you need to win two big games in the final three weeks of the tournament and have luck go your way. You also need to recognise the momentum motorway. France have momentum, fashioned through making 200 tackles and not being prepared to play with the ball against the All Blacks in Cardiff.

France’s most capped test player Fabian Pelous said the battle plan against New Zealand was simple because it could only work once every four years. He added that if they did it in the next five games they would fail every time. France, he said, did not want the ball.

France won with 30 percent ball as they felt they would have been a danger to themselves with more possession. What an advertisement for the game, you may ask.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of play-offs rugby, when the occasion has no regard for attacking skills, form or who is the more talented player. It comes down to who deals with the pressure better and who makes the least mistakes. It is a success formula that shows up the ignorance and arrogance of this modern day obsession in sacrificing everything over four years when it can all go wrong in 10 minutes.

You play great rugby for four years and then you prepare to play no rugby for three weeks.

New Zealand still hasn’t learned. Less than a day after Henry joined four other failed All Blacks World Cup campaigns, the country’s rugby boss Jock Hobbs was talking about building for 2011. Why?

Just accept that for two big games every four years you don’t want the ball and you don’t want the risk of playing rugby.

Defence, in the professional era, has won World Cups. Teams trying to play rugby have killed themselves.

That is what makes the World Cup so different to the Tri Nations and the Six Nations. It is a knock-out competition in which the equivalent of English soccer’s Sheffield United can knock over Manchester United by simply not being prepared to entertain a game of skill.

And that’s why England and France’s wins at the weekend did not turn the world order on its head. Neither side relied on skill to win, but both recognised the crassness of a situation in which no one cares how much you bleed in winning the fight. What matters is you are standing at the end to collect the belt.

The romantic notion is that the Boks could be different and actually play some rugby in the final two matches. The reality is the Boks have been at their best in World Cups when they haven’t had the ball either.

All of which shows how New Zealand is already getting it wrong for 2011 because they confuse being World Champions and World Cup holders. To be world champions and dominate between World Cup you have to have the ball.

To be World Cup holders – something they haven’t been since 1987 – you in fact don’t want the ball.

By Keo - www.keo.co.za