By Jason Cave
November 14th 2009 @ 2:34am
Loading ...How the All Blacks lost the 1991 RWC
The All Blacks‘ failure to win the Rugby World Cup can be traced back to the 1991 edition, in Britain and France. In 1990, the All Blacks selectors made a decision that would later come back to haunt them by omitting one of the all-time greats of All Black history in Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford.
It robbed the All Blacks of their hardness, and most importantly their leadership.
Even though the All Blacks just managed to retain the Bledisloe Cup earlier that year, there were signs that all was not well with the men in black.
The NZRFU announced the appointment of Alex Wyllie to be the coach of the All Blacks for the 1991 World Cup.
But when Auckland’s John Hart indicated that he wanted to be a part of the All Black set-up, the NZRFU was left with no option but to have Hart and Wyllie named as co-coaches.
It was a partnership that was doomed to failure, with the All Blacks being divided – most players (especially those from Hart’s province Auckland) wanted to play under Hart, the others under Wyllie.
And it ended up being a shambles, with the split very much out in the open and reported with damaging headlines in the New Zealand media. Even the All Black players came under criticism for their lack of PR during their stay in Dublin, Ireland while preparing for their semi-final against Australia, which they lost.
Would the All Blacks have performed better in that World Cup if they were under Laurie Mains and not the Wyllie/Hart alliance? And would the All Blacks have won the ‘91 World Cup if ‘Buck’ Shelford was in the team?
That-and many others-are left unanswered even to this day.
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sheek said | November 14th 2009 @ 7:40am | Report comment
Jason,
We are of course, so much wiser after the event.
The Wyllie-Hart partnership was never going to work, & you don’t need hindsight to know that. It was almost a suicidal decision by the NZRU, almost as if they didn’t want to win the WC.
Perhaps more likely, NZ Rugby had grown arrogant & complacent from its extraordinary success 1987-90, & thought nothing could stop them.
The decision to sack Shelford was part of this arrogant attitude. As if nothing could stop the ABs from wining, & winning, & winning……….
Sure, Buck had lost his buck, & ZB brought much more skills to the pitch. But ZB was still years away from realising his prodigious gifts. Sacking Buck saw the ABs lose their soul, their hardman, their inspiration, their glue.
Much the same happened when Mallet sacked his Boks captain Teichmann in 1998, & the Boks a year later had lost their zing.
However, one thing is certain. In both 1991 & 99, the Wallabies were on the way up, into their ascendency. Like the Melbourne Cup, they had timed their run to perfection. It was their time. And you don’t need hindsight to acknowledge that.
ohtani's jacket said | November 14th 2009 @ 9:18am | Report comment
Australia were a great team and to their credit even better the following year.
There were a lot of other factors besides the Auckland Rugby Union’s white anting and the general unhappiness within the squad. If you look at the ‘89 end of year tour, we were an awesome side with a strong midweek squad. The league raids hurt the All Blacks more than anything else and that was the reason why the Auckland Rugby Union were so adamant at having Zinzan replace Buck since Zinzan was a league target. Zinzan didn’t really come into his own until the Sydney Bledisloe Test in 1994 and if the came hadn’t turned professional shortly thereafter I imagine he would’ve gone to Manly.
It’s long forgotten now, but Grant Fox played with an abdominal injury in that World Cup, and the worse NZ became after 1989, the more they relied on Fox to bail them out. It didn’t happen and somehow we had a crappy backline where Crowley was playing fullback instead of Timu, we had no true no.11 and our midfield pairing was weak. The pack was reasonably good (aside from missing Michael Jones for the semi), the backs were simply poor and from memory Kirwan tried to do it all by himself in the second half of the semi. On the plus side, somebody was watching Frank Bunce’s performances in that World Cup.
Rugby World Cups are about timing more than anything. A year earlier or a year later and a lot of the past champions wouldn’t have won. The All Blacks had a bad year in 1991. We had the team to win it in 1995 and 2007, but we couldn’t and so it goes on into the next one. Personally, I think whoever wins the next World Cup with be a workmanlike team and not a great side because of the authoritarian way the IRB manages the World Cup but we’ll have to see.
Cattledog said | November 14th 2009 @ 12:14pm | Report comment
…And will remain unanswered for evermore…relegated to history…move on.
sheek said | November 14th 2009 @ 2:49pm | Report comment
OJ,
What happened to NZ re league defections in 89-90 (Gallagher, Shuster, Innes, Botica, etc) was usually Australian rugby’s history every 2-3 years ad nauseum 1908-95!
And it was the bloody Kiwis who got the Aussies involved in rugby league in the first place, with your ‘All Golds’ team of 1907.
Frank O'Keeffe said | November 14th 2009 @ 3:10pm | Report comment
I agree with ohtani’s jacket about Crowley making the All Blacks backline look very pedestrian. I’ve seen the 1991 World Cup semi many many times. It’s a great game for seeing the Australian pack of forwards absolutely dominate those first 30 minutes or so. But it’s painfully obvious that Lynagh was looking to exploit Crowley’s lack of pace in that game.
How dominant were Australia in that first half? Dominant enough that they could have, and should have, gone into halftime with a 25-0 lead. I’m serious! Lynagh missed three or four shots at goal (he was in a place-kicking slump at the time). Lynagh also missed an opportunity where Campese created an overlap by injecting himself inbetween Lynagh and Egerton. Lynagh kicked the ball instead of passing the ball to Campese. Campese also nearly created another try, when Australia won a quick turnover and Campo found himself in the centres and was looking to draw Kirwan towards him so he could unleash Egerton. Grant Fox ankle tapped him while coming across in cover, and that saved the try. Later on Lynagh chip-kicked across the field, noticing Crowley wasn’t standing wide enough. The kicked was well weighted, and all Egerton had to do was scoop it up and score the try, but the ball took an unfortunate bounce and rolled into touch.
For all the talk about the tactical game being boring, I did find the variety of Lynagh’s kicks facinating, because he constantly found Crowley out time after time again – cross-field kicks, chip-kicks, corner kicks etc. Of course Campese’s blind pass came just after a perfectly weighted Lynagh chip-kick once again found Crowley out. Crowley was too slow to field the ball and Campo was left to do his magic. I’m not exeggerating when I say Australia could have gone into halftime with a 25-0 lead!
Bob Howitt, the New Zealand writer, suggested if New Zealand had Gallagher or even Ridge, instead of Crowley, Campese never would have made that blind pass. And it’s probably true. But Australia were simply playing what’s in front of them. Clearly had Gallagher played that game Lynagh would have changed his gameplan. Howitt’s arrogance aside, I find it hard to believe Australia would have lost that game if Gallagher did play, because of the dominance of the Aussie forwards in that half. You can talk about all the league defections from the All Blacks backline, but the game was won in the forwards. Troy Coker in particular played a tremendous game.
In the second half things looked pretty bad for New Zealand. In that half New Zealand had all the possession, but their backline was a shambled. At first all they did was get the ball out to Timu, no imagination or anything, and Campese shut Timu down. Anytime Campo tackled Timu around the legs, Horan was there to smash him up top as well. There were one or two instances late in the game where Timu had the ball, came up against Campese, and ran away from him as if to say, “No way through there.”
Spare a thought for John Kirwan because when he wasn’t getting smashed in that game, he was trying his hardest and getting no help. Most of the All Black plays in the last 20 minutes were to Kirwan. He was either passed the ball when Egerton was ripe and ready to tackle him, or when he had the smallest bit of space, he was tremendous in slicing his way inbetween Little and Egerton. His in and aways were very impressive.
There was one instant in that match when Kirwan beat Little and Egerton, had no support, and then got crunched by Horan and Ofahengaue coming across in cover. Both Horan and Ofahengaue were by far the best players in defence that day. But it makes you wonder what Kirwan could have done? He did everything the team basically wanted him to do, which was to create opportunities, but he had no support. It effectively took four players to stop Kirwan, which says something about how good Kirwan was.
The the 79th minute, with the game over, Kirwan once again made a similar break and this time Horan and Ofahengaue weren’t going to stop him in cover. Insted Kirwan only had Marty Robuck, the fullback, to stop him. Kirwan slowed down, looked for support on the outside so to set someone up for the try, but it never came and he got crunched. It’s interesting, if you look at when Kirwan received the ball, Crowley was maybe a metre behind him on his outside, Kirwan sped up to beat a few players, and Crowley just faded into the distance.
So yeah it wasn’t a great day for Kieran Crowley. In fact it might have been his last game for New Zealand. Between Lynagh exposing him time and time again, and his inability to keep up with Kirwan, his lack of pace was a real problem.
Anyway, Crowley aside, I don’t think Shelford would have made a difference. The pack plays as one, the Aussie pack played as one, and really blasted New Zealand off the paddock. I couldn’t recall New Zealand having possession in Australia’s territory for the first 30 minutes. Anytime they were in the Aussie half it was because they kicked the ball there and Australia had possession. It really was a dominant first 30 minutes for Australia. Whatever ball New Zealand did get was bad ball in that first half, and Grant Fox was pressured everytime into an option he didn’t seem to want to take. Fox had no impact on that game whatsoever.
I’d suggest Australia won the World Cup because they were the best side truth be told. Gary Whtteon was kind enough to later say that despite some of the internal problems in the New Zealand camp at the time (two coaches for example) that wasn’t the reason New Zealand didn’t win the world cup. Australia were the better side. He did note it didn’t make things any easier though.
ohtani's jacket said | November 14th 2009 @ 4:28pm | Report comment
Yeah, it was Crowley’s last Test. He actually wasn’t part of the World Cup squad. They called him over when Terry Wright was injured. Crowley was a good provincial player and is currently the coach of Canada. He was a decent fullback in the Robbie Deans/Allan Hewson mode but never a first choice Test player. Once Gallagher burst on the scene, NZ rugby’s perception of what a fullback should be had drastically altered.
Frank O'Keeffe said | November 14th 2009 @ 3:23pm | Report comment
An interesting sidenote about my “Australia could have been 25-0 at halftime comment.”
For all of Australia absolutely dominating the breakdown and dominating territory, gosh Australia lost a hell of a lot of line-out ball in the game. I think the figures were Australia were losing line-outs on their own throw 1:2.
sheek said | November 14th 2009 @ 3:51pm | Report comment
Frank,
That Howitt comment about how things would have been different had Gallagher, etc been there at fullback, really annoyed me at the time.
In response, where do we start ??? Messenger, McKivat, McCue, Gilbert, Allan, Kearney, Connor, Summons, Ryan, Thornett, Cleary, Lisle, Hawthorne, Brass, Fairfax, Price, O’Connor, D’Arcy, Papworth, Burke – to name just a few!!!
ohtani's jacket said | November 14th 2009 @ 4:21pm | Report comment
Well, New Zealand rugby is insular and never thinks too much about other countries’ problems. Besides, Australia proved they were the better team the following year.
Frank O'Keeffe said | November 14th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Yeah, Howitt’s criticism is even worse when you consider it suggests that Australia would have played exactly the same had Gallagher played. There were a diversity of options available to Australia that day, and as Bob Dwyer says ‘no option is ever wrong, only the execution’.
Take Campese’s try. It’s a great moment of brilliance, but it’s what happens before Campo received the ball that made it happen, in particular Lynagh’s work. Lynagh was allowed to run, I’d estimate, around 8 metres ahead of the advantage line. By the time Farr-jones passed the ball Australia had cleaned out the ruck with a quick explosion. The result from Lynagh’s run was the All Blacks had to run backwards in defence hope they’re numbering up right. The quick presentation of ball at the breakdown meant whomever received Farr-Jones’ pass would already have the All Blacks under pressure.
I think there was a very good chance Australia could have scored without Campese’s run. The All Blacks lacked numbers out wide and their defence was disorganised. They shouldn’t have let Lynagh run that far in the first place. Campo’s try is just one ‘option’ that was available to the Wallabies. It was an incredibly impressive option to take considering Campese appeared in the five-eighth position out of no where, and scored a try that confused their defence (especially Kirwan) even further. But with the platform the Wallabies had, I wouldn’t have been surprised if could have scored another way. It’s just nice for the spectators and a tribute to Campese, that the Wallabies scored in perhaps the most impressive way possible.
Howitt’s criticism ignores that fact that Australia created a platform, through the forwards, whereby they had an unlimited number of options available to him. Picking on Crowley is just one of them. Had Mark Ella played that game I doubt he would have looked to play a tactical game, but with the platform there would be so many things he could have done. Maybe he could have scored a try with his support play etc.
sheek said | November 16th 2009 @ 4:27pm | Report comment
OJ,
You’re right about NZ’s insularity, but iIthink a few more WC heartaches has taught them circumspection, not to mention a little humility!
Frank,
What Howitt misses with his criticism back then, is that had Gallagher been playing, Lynagh would have kicked to another place on the field, or the Wallabies done something different, maybe for the same result. Anyway, you play with what you have on the day against what is put up against you.
You can’t do anymore than that.