The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

2015 Rugby World Cup preview: New Zealand

Roar Guru
26th December, 2014
Advertisement
Nothing to do with all your strength! The All Blacks should have more World Cups than they do. (Photo: Paul Barkley/LookPro)
Roar Guru
26th December, 2014
251
3052 Reads

They might be favourites to lift the Webb Ellis Cup next year, but Rugby World Cups have proven in the past to bring out the worst in New Zealand teams.

It is difficult to judge just how good a coach Steve Hansen, or any other coach who is in charge of New Zealand’s national team for that matter, actually is.

They are working with such a good conveyor belt of high quality players that it would be a bigger challenge to get them to play badly than it would be to get them to play well.

>> 2015 Rugby World Cup fixtures

A lot of what makes New Zealand a great team comes down to players’ instincts and decision-making in clutch situations, which can be attributed to the excellent rugby intelligence that they develop from playing the game from such a young age.

The main problem for New Zealand as regards winning the World Cup is that they can beat most teams without getting out of second gear.

This means that they often go into autopilot mode for several games at a time, until some team brings a serious challenge. Then it comes down to how quickly they can recover, and lift their performance levels by the necessary amount.

In 2013, this happened when they played the Springboks in Johannesburg, but New Zealand recovered in time, and eventually pulled away on the scoreboard.

Advertisement

At the end of that year, Ireland put in an excellent performance against them, but New Zealand did just enough to claw their way back and win the game.

This year, England did the same thing in their first Test of the June series, but New Zealand were still able to score a try a few minutes out from full time which proved to be the difference between the two teams.

However, in their final game in this year’s Rugby Championship, they were not able to deal with the physicality and pace that South Africa brought, eventually losing the game narrowly.

If New Zealand let their guard down like this in the knockout stages of the World Cup, any one of South Africa, Australia, Ireland, England, Wales or France are good enough on their day to beat them.

Another potential problem for New Zealand in terms of winning another World Cup is the out-half position.

Despite New Zealand’s apparent strength in depth at out-half, they are not invulnerable. Aaron Cruden is one of the best tens currently playing the game, but if he were to pick up an injury, the other options may not necessarily be good enough to guide New Zealand to a victorious World Cup campaign.

Beauden Barrett has been compared to a young Dan Carter, and while he has displayed the flashes of brilliances that Carter displayed in his prime, such as miracle passes and excellently weighted chip/grubber kicks which lead to tries, Barrett’s game management is nowhere near as good as Carter’s.

Advertisement

Colin Slade has shown excellent form for the Crusaders in the most recent Super Rugby campaign, but his performances for New Zealand at the last World Cup were unconvincing.

As for Carter, limited game time at out-half due to injury, and being moved to 12 for the Crusaders to accommodate the in-form Slade in Super Rugby have been the contributing factors in him being well short of his best form in recent times.

In his most recent start, which came against Scotland in the 2014 November series, he looked racked with nerves and his body language and facial expressions seemed to worsen as the game went on.

Although it was an experimental New Zealand team that had been selected around him, his poor performance seemed to stem from something deeper than rustiness.

New Zealand will most likely qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup as winners of their pool, which could mean a quarter-final against France, a team who have given them nightmares in the last two World Cups.

Their quarter-final defeat to the French in 2007 is something that no doubt lingers in the mind of any New Zealander, but the 2011 World Cup final showed just how much the prospect of playing France can affect the psyche of New Zealand’s players.

France were the better team in that final. If not for extremely cynical breakdown play by New Zealand, as well as one of the most one-sided display of refereeing that the game has ever seen, New Zealand’s psychological issues with performing well at World Cups would have continued.

Advertisement

There is every chance that playing against France in a quarter-final again could induce the same sense of panic in New Zealand’s ranks that we saw in 2007.

close