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We all search for brilliants, whether it’s a lifetime or a few seconds in your life. Some search on the outer but the centre is where the real mysteries and answers lie.
The All Blacks do have an extra edge and some don’t know why. In a professional world, you would think other countries would catch up or a phase would pass and the new All Black team would be weaker than before. But the black wave always comes back at you with power.
Like a mighty river, it always flows and when it gets altered somehow it rises again in a different form, more of a beast than before.
For me the answer lies, not in the psychology or the physical, it stems deeper. It forms from a mystic past, pride, honour, respect and it moulds into a fine heart, and a heart delivers. It makes better decisions than the mind.
We’re often taught the other way around. It’s just that the ones who say they were listening too much to their heart were in fact just listening too much to their mind. The heart never lets you down.
The mind often lets you down. Many don’t know the difference between the two.
So when the other countries try to catch up with all their physical skills, mental skills, they don’t go deeply enough into the spirit. It’s a dimension that only exists to them in perhaps team culture and maybe blurred into psychology which is mostly the mind.
But the All Blacks keep edging deeper into this realm. The haka connects them to it, and when you become just at one with the heart with the pride of such a fine past then you can become almost mindless, so psychology is not really needed as the mind is at its highest peak – it’s clear, free, and the mind becomes at one with the present moment and just does what the heart asks.
You get perfect psychology here. That is what the All Blacks have. And that extra five per cent that they enter into makes them finer and keeps them ahead.
This takes me to the Rugby World Cup 2011, the final against France.The All Blacks were focused in the first half, but not so much in the second. You could say the mind crept in and the result could have easily gone the other way.
You see what baggage can do? Fear? It makes you lose and not just on the field. Piri Weepu was the first to lose his focus and that started to ripple out to some of the team.
With three minutes left in the game with the All Blacks leading 8-7, the All Blacks had a scrum 12 metres inside their own half, ten metres from the sideline. The call from the coaches’ box was to kick it.
I was at a pub in Whangamata. I looked at the lady next to me who I didn’t know.
“What do you do? I almost felt it was up to me to make the decision.”
“You take it blind from the scrum, from Read,” I said.
Richie McCaw overruled the coach and went blind with Kieran Read. Read made some good yards, and seven short phases later a penalty was awarded.
I turned to the lady. I was in the rhythm of the world. I felt I could read the world almost in this state.
“We win this lineout and we’ve won,” I said.
Beaver kicked for the line, and the lineout was formed. When Brad Thorn brilliantly caught it under pressure I jumped in the air, and when the final penalty came up I jumped up before anyone else. The dream was realised.
History could have changed though in that final moment at scrum time. Graham Henry in the box seat had fear at times wondering if they lost could he stay in New Zealand. He was thinking that. The mind was filtering through, not present, and this can affect your decisions.
McCaw listened to his heart and overruled a decision that may have come from the mind. Who knows what would have happened with booting it away. It could have been fine, but having the French coming back at you with one final crack only needing a penalty or a drop goal to win would have been a scary two minutes.
They are the moments when that finer one per cent, driven from the heart can achieve the sublime. Richie McCaw went with a feeling. He was at one with the rhythm of the world.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.