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A blue cloud on the horizon for the All Blacks machine

6th October, 2015
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Where will the French land this World Cup? (AFP PHOTO / LIONEL BONAVENTURE)
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6th October, 2015
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Now let me preface this by stating that New Zealand are the most dominant team that the rugby world has ever known. There are only two current sporting institutions that can match the domination they have demonstrated in the last four years: the Australian rugby league team and Serena Williams.

So it is always the strangest statistic in rugby that a captain wearing black has only lifted the Webb Ellis Trophy twice, an enigma for which no obvious solution seems apparent.

However, on Friday night we caught a glimpse of some of the reasons why their stroll to the title might not be the inevitability that many commentators have suggested.

Take the scrum, it took the arrival of Owen Franks and Tony Woodcock in the 60th minute to restore some semblance of order to what had been a developing worry. New Zealand were twisted, shoved back and bullied up front to the point Richie McCaw felt it necessary to disengage early and stop the quick ball appearing any quicker. It was a borderline call to say he was illegally disengaging from the scrum but everything great McCaw does is a borderline call, such is the nature of his position.

Nonetheless, a bit of perspective is needed. ‘Scrum problems’ here actually translates as ‘not total control’. The All Blacks still won all their scrums, and they were playing against a pair of props that ply their trade in the murky and violent world of French domestic rugby (Brive and Toulon).

That’s a place where men are grown like the fabled dwarfs of Middle Earth; compact and incredibly powerful, adorned with shaggy beards and excellent technique. Yet after Franks and Woodcock arrived the tables swung, violently at times, in the All Blacks’ favour. Not all bad then, a good test before reaching the knock-out stages some might say.

Okay, not bad then. A common complaint and reason for New Zealand’s underperformance in World Cups often is the lack of challenging group games, meaning an undercooked team are vulnerable to bushwhacking in the quarter-finals. Georgia did them a favour in the scrum then and at the breakdown where the ball was turned over 14 times.

Fourteen turnovers is an impressive statistic against any team but against the All Blacks it is astonishing. Georgia achieved this partly through brute force; the strong tackle taking the man backwards and then men getting over the ball. However there was a conspicuous lack of black shirted forwards around the breakdown to stop this Georgian mugging. When you look for these missing forwards in the first half it was apparent that they were committed elsewhere on the field.

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Dane Coles, a world-class running forward in the middle of the park, positioned himself repeatedly out wide, apparently looking for that easy try against the weak opposition. In the end he can thank McCaw for his sharp running lines that enabled him to come away with the score he so craved.

However, on four occasions in the first half, when the Georgian defence looked about to crumble, the final pass found Coles rather than the much more threatening hands of Julian Savea or Waisake Naholo. Why was a hooker lingering in the outside channels so much?

I haven’t even mentioned the handling yet, with the ball hitting the deck so many times it felt like I was watching a colts game. The Georgian defenders were quick, taking the defensive offside line as a suggestion rather than a law.

This meant they were in the All Blacks attackers face milliseconds after the ball’s arrival. When they reached the attacking player they often let them know about it too, Dan Carter looking physically shaken at one point later in the second half.

Although that many handling errors is unusual it is not a symptom of terminal decline, just a bad day at the office against a lesser side.

Therefore, I can only suggest that some of the players did not take the threat of Georgia as seriously as they should have. True, the chances of Georgia winning was into the thousands to one but complacency is a cancer that can be very hard to recover from.

That’s the issue in knock-out rugby, there’s no allowance for losing and no space for complacency. South Africa had their wake-up call in the relatively cosy environment of a group game fixture. New Zealand never have that luxury because the shape of the draw always favours the top seed with a cake walk of a group.

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Therefore I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from this, but there are some comparisons I could make between Georgia and another team whom New Zealand should fear more than most.

Georgia’s forwards are big, combative and brutal, much like the French. They have a strong front row who tend to get the benefit of the doubt from referees, much like the French. They have a back line that is willing to rush defence and flatten anyone who comes near to the ball, much like… well, I think you get the idea.

Add to that a world-class French back row, an arguably better set of front row forwards on the bench, a now settled and happy Frederic Michalak and a rejuvenated Wesley Fofana.

The French are the only team where form means next to nothing. If they win or lose depends on the way they feel on the morning of the match. In recent years the Six Nations has slipped down the priority list of the French player, behind their domestic competition and the European Cup. Philippe Saint-Andre has excused poor and at times baffling international performances with a Gaelic shrug and a ‘but we’re French’.

For that reason it is very hard to judge their chances leading up to this tournament but they have arrived with some quiet determination. They have a set of players led by Louis Picamoles and Thierry Dusautoir who can pressure New Zealand in all the ways that Georgia did and more.

There won’t be those spaces in open play for New Zealand’s speedsters to dance through with such ease, as they did last Friday. Plus Saint-Andre, for the first time ever, has had two months with his team to drill them in his playing style (refer to Sale circa 2006), which is exactly the style New Zealand seem to dislike playing against the most.

New Zealand have very few teams to fear but if I was a Kiwi supporter, and with no disrespect to Ireland, I would be cheering on the men in blue this weekend.

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