England try to steal that All Black jersey magic

 
Michael Warren Roar Pro

By Michael Warren, 16 Jul 2011 Michael Warren is a Roar Pro

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    Wallaby great Elton Flatley has been at it again. “The All Blacks are too old,” he says. Yeah, right!

    How proud I am to be a Kiwi and how flattered I am to know the trouble teams and individuals will go to in the hope they will upset the All Blacks and New Zealanders.

    Hell, they don’t know the Kiwi psyche very well, do they! We have comedians and wannabes jumping out of the woodwork worldwide.

    How did an All Black team get so far under the pasty white skin of the English that they now need to attire themselves in a black jersey to help them believe that they are up to the All Black playing standard?

    When are overseas teams ever going to learn that to be an All Black you have to be playing for the team, and no amount of wearable art is ever going to make you be one?

    The Scots have tried it, the French have tried it and now the Poms are trying it, even to the extent that they want to place Maori motifs onto the shirts in the hope that the team will suddenly arise into an unbeatable Webb Ellis trophy recipient because they wore black.

    The laugh goes on.

    Australia has its comedians also. Flatley has been sending great clouds of fantasy smoke into the air and having the interlocking rings drift across the Tasman in the hope that his comments will be taken seriously.

    Next they will be telling us that Robbie “Dingo” Deans is only filling in as Wallaby coach because he lost his way trying to find the North Island when he left the Crusaders and needed a job. (Come back Robbie, all is forgiven!)

    Springboks coach Peter de Villiers continues to make known that only his B side will tour Australia and New Zealand ahead of the World Cup. Does he actually have a better side? Maybe he has been inhaling the same stuff as Elton.

    The latest revelation by NZRU chief executive Steve Tew is that the proposal to have Argentina join the existing three countries in an enlarged Four-Nations southern hemisphere competition is also a lot closer than most people realise.

    The Crusaders proved that you can still be a finalist in any competition even after you travel, and travel, and travel, and ……. To get a true perspective of the herculean effort required you need to rise above and overcome partisan refs in partisan stadiums full of partisans.

    Travelling 10,000 km before a final and making out it’s not a problem is utter rubbish.

    How a quad-nations event will help improve a flagging tri-nations event is even more mystifying.

    Maybe the meeting of chief executives of all the major rugby-playing nations in Los Angeles later this month will solve this dilemma for me. (Or better still ask Elton and Peter for their input; and why Los Angeles anyway?)

    The All Blacks have put away the rose tinted glasses they used to view the roses on the English shirts and have donned the Black Dog shades to view their own.

    The screaming Nor ‘west wind blowing across the Tasman has dissipated Elton’s smoke-rings and Peter’s invalid army is resting up. All is well in the All Black tent and only the All Blacks are sleeping (so I’m told) with eyes wide open.


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