Demise of men in black greatly exaggerated

By DAVID KIRK - Fairfax Media | Monday, 09 June 2008

Poor Mark Twain. He has suffered the ignominy of being so widely quoted his witticisms have become cliches. I won't spare him either.

Reports of the All Blacks' demise have been greatly exaggerated. The schadenfruede the British teams showed - the lot of them - when the All Blacks were dumped out of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in the quater-finals was well-cellared bile from Chateau Loser.

England made the World Cup final - good luck to them - but they were and are ordinary and the ensuing Six Nations soon demonstrated that.

Something very odd happened to Ireland at the World Cup, which is still to be explained, but they are a pretty reasonable international team.

They showed that on Saturday night in their 21-11 loss to the All Blacks. Wales have their moments and they certainly did themselves justice in the Six Nations this year, but it is hard to avoid the reality that they are, along with Scotland, irredeemably second division.

The unbridled joy, the cant, the bilious, blow-hard self-righteous bollocks that came from officials, players, commentators, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all in the British Isles when the All Blacks were dumped out in Cardiff last year was hard to take.

All Blacks current and past were accused of being arrogant, born-to-rule pretenders who got their just desserts. As if being number one in the world for four years didn't count for anything.

Well Earth to the UK.. come in... come in... are you receiving loud and clear? The message is the All Blacks were the best team in the world last year and they still are.

No excuses for losing in the quarter finals, they played badly on the day and didn't deserve to win. But the team didn't deserve the holier-than-thou, gleeful metaphorical effiigy burning they had to put up with either.

New Zealanders reacted unusually to the loss. It is of course now five World Cups since New Zealand won and the reserves of passion finally ran dry.

Rather than rant and rave, find fault and criticse, New Zealanders turned their backs and looked away.

Too much hope and desire had been committed for too long. Enough was enough. The rugby public in New Zealand felt let down once too often.

They lost the will to deeply care.

This for me was a far more damaging state of mind than the normal grieving process we have been through all too often before - denial, anger, depression, acceptance.

We went straight to resignation.

Late last year the National Provincial Championship final between Wellington and Auckland was played in front of empty stands. Summer couldn't come quick enough. Top players moved on to graze in financially greener paddocks, hardly a hand was wrung.

The one thing that did ignite a brief flair of the old anger and bitter competitiveness was the reappointment of Graham Henry as All Black coach. The mono-oculars from Canterbury, which is all of them, were of course outraged. To be far a fair few others were too. Anyway this was good old civil war, we hadn't lost the passion for that. But as for the All Blacks, "not sure I can be bothered next year" was the recurrent refrain.

Well now it is next year and the Super 14 has been won by a New Zealand team (for the 10th time in 14 years in case you've lost count) and a new All Black team has been selected.

Didn't they do well?

Ireland are a class team. Athletic, aggressive, organised and with a great goal kicker. The All Blacks assembled on Wednesday for a Saturday Test match, just like the good old days.

Time enough to say hello to the blokes you've never played with before and work out the lineout calls, then it's off to the ground to play the best the Northern Hemisphere can come up with. And win.

The All Black front row was just about 100% brand-spanking new - a handful of caps between them - and, along with two other inexperienced test players, Brad Thorn and Jerome Kaino, they dominated a powerful Irish scrum and lineout and the physical confrontation at the tackle.

The All Blacks have also rebuilt the backline and on Saturday's performance they have got most of it right first up.

Ellis was tough and intelligent, he will need to get out of the habit of a running a couple of paces before passing and no doubt his kicking game will develop but his ability to clear the ball, use his loose forwards and make his tackles was first class.

Ma'a Nonu was perfect at inside centre for the conditions, whether a drier ball and faster ground will challenge his decision making remains to be seen.

Conrad Smith and Tuitavaki made virtually error-free transitions to the big time.

So it is on to England next week and it is highly likely they will do worse than Ireland.

For a nation that did exceptionally well away from home in the 19th Century, it has been pretty much downhill ever since.

Not since Martin Johnson led a full strength English team to Australia and New Zealand prior to the 2003 World Cup, has England had any success in this part of the world.

And, judging by performances in the Six Nations and Heinekin Cup, that is not about to change any time soon.

*David Kirk was captain of the All Blacks when they won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 and is the CEO of Fairfax Media.