Kaplan was also a little too sympathetic to the Australian front-rowers at scrum time, so two areas where the All Blacks typically dominate weren’t as telling in New Zealand’s favour as they normally are.

Quick hands by Jerome Kaino and Ma’a Nonu had created an overlap for Mils Muliaina to score, after a quick tap by Jimmy Cowan had sucked in the Australian cover defence, but the Wallabies had erased the All Blacks’ early lead with two tries either side of half-time and looked to have an unstoppable momentum.

Then The Blonde, a soothsayer of sorts, said “they should get the ball to Woodcock, he’ll score.” At the time I wrote it off as a bit too fanciful… she was remembering his four other test tries, all against Australia, and was probably assuming he had some mystical extra power exclusive to trans-Tasman encounters.

Well, about three minutes later when Conrad Smith gathered a wild pass from broken play and suddenly galloped into space, who do you suppose was on his shoulder for the final draw-and-pass? Tony Woodcock, that’s who, and he sprinted in at the left-hand corner like a slightly less graceful Jonah Lomu. I didn’t see The Blonde’s immediate reaction because I was in my fighting crouch, screaming at the television, but I high-fived her respectfully afterwards. I thought briefly about asking who would score next, but clairvoyance is a dangerous thing to flirt with and her eyes are sometimes particularly satanic during Bledisloe matches… she’d successfully predicted the loss in Sydney and the win in Auckland this year.

Woodcock’s try brought the All Blacks back to within three points at 14-17, and reinforced any wavering resolve at a crucial moment. Like four million other New Zealanders, I tried to stay calm and placed my well-being willingly once again in the All Blacks’ hands.

The momentum was wholly reversed when the All Blacks scored again. A bust by Rodney So’oialo got the Wallabies back-pedalling again, and then Sitiveni Sivivatu probed the fringes to find another small gap. He was tackled but landed well, looked around for support and offloaded from the deck for substitute halfback Piri Weepu who cantered through the haemorrhaging defence to give New Zealand the lead.

Pounding away at the Australian line again five minutes later, the All Blacks were looking to deliver the coup de grace. Smashing into the Wallabies under the goalposts they recycled ball neatly, and Dan Carter picked his moment yet again. Running straight at Ryan Cross he dropped his shoulder and pivoted, to almost effortlessly slip the rugby league-style tackle, and ran back around under the sticks with his arm raised in triumph.

At 28-17 there was little chance of a decisive comeback by the Wallabies, although Cross did make amends of sorts by crashing over handy to the posts in the dying minutes, which made for a dramatic crescendo. There were the obligatory fearful moments that mark the end of every all-time-great test… a heroic turnover by George Smith giving the Wallabies one final chance at glory when, really, the All Blacks should have been able to run down the clock comfortably… but the fitness levels told in the end when there were twice as many tacklers in black jerseys as there were ball-carriers in gold.

I have the Bledisloe Cup sitting right here beside me in the War Room, thanks (a) to the All Blacks for successfully defending it and (b) to the NZRU’s generous policy of occasionally lending it for promotional purposes. One of my responsibilities while it’s in my custody is to polish it, which I’ve already done with great relish. Afterwards I sat up all night staring at it, like a dragon lying on a bed of jewels in its cave.

At first, intoxicated a little by its lustre, the Blonde and I thought covetously about christening it in a way that hadn’t been done before, but it wasn’t just the probability that others might have thought or even done the same thing that stopped us. It was that it would have been disrespectful to do so, not having earned the right. The All Blacks had bled for it on the nation’s behalf… it would be like wearing Charlie Upham’s medals.

Now, with the Bledisloe Cup and Tri Nations trophy retained, the All Blacks can reflect on a successful southern winter with great pride. There is still the small matter of a Grand Slam tour in November to come, along with a mid-week match against the Heineken Cup champions in Munster and a fourth Bledisloe test in Hong Kong… that match in particular being no walk in the park, with the possibility of the Bledisloe series score being levelled without the trophy actually being up for grabs.

The cabinet at headquarters is almost full, but we don’t get another shot at the World Cup for another three years, and with Robbie Deans in charge of the Wallabies we’ll be nervously looking over our shoulders every year until then. He has turned around a team in disarray and given them their character back.

That’s where the real lustre of this Cup sitting beside me now comes from, that teeth-grinding intensity whenever it is played for. The New Zealand and Australian unions should agree in advance on the Bledisloe being up for grabs, if the All Blacks and Wallabies meet in the 2011 World Cup… seeing as, on current form, those two teams are almost guaranteed to contest the final.

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Robbie Deans and the Wallabies pulled off a tremendous victory in Durban. The Springboks had been humiliated 0-19 a week before by the All Blacks in Cape Town, and everyone was certain that a backlash would follow directly.

The African press had been brutally honest and reasonably measured after the All Black thrashing, many giving credit to New Zealand for their precise dissection of the Bokke based on better ball skills and better adaptation to the new laws (the most damning headline was Blunderboks).

But a major correction was expected against Australia, and when it didn’t happen the newspapers used every insult they could find.

It didn’t give credit where it was due.

The Wallabies beat the Springboks to the breakdown, supported the ball carrier in greater numbers, ran straighter, tackled more ferociously, made far fewer handling errors and disrupted South Africa’s normally clean set-piece ball.

Although beaten so soundly in all these departments, and therefore meriting some criticism, the Springboks’ error-rate was all that rated a serious mention by the African writers. Little of significance was printed about how Australia had played.

But New Zealand’s rugby public sat up and took notice.

Many of the most complacent kiwis had expected the Wallabies to come a major cropper in the Republic, with the Springboks forcing a three-way tie at the top of the Tri Nations table, and only the Johannesburg and Brisbane fixtures remaining.

Now they looked at Australia with genuine respect. After the All Blacks’ masterclass at Newlands it was certainly less comfortable for their fans to revisit how dreadful more or less the same team had been in Sydney.

Also, the regret in some quarters that a former New Zealander had rebuilt the Wallabies (so quickly after their 2007 season-long debacle) was increased and therefore the Deans psychological factor, that plays so strongly in the skittery New Zealand sporting psyche if not the All Blacks themselves, was too.

Particular attention should be paid at least to the way the Australians defused the Springbok ferocity and played their own game plan instead of being disrupted by the constant off-the-ball niggle. The All Blacks have often struggled with this, as witnessed by the difference in performance between their tests in Dunedin (lost 28-30) and Cape Town (won 19-0).

Both times they faced a front-page Springbok resume of such negative tactics but their response at Carisbrook was flighty and hot-headed, while at Newlands had been was sure and composed.

That they coped in such different ways and to such dramatically different effect cannot be explained solely by the availability of Richie McCaw for the second of these tests, unless the psychological edge he brings is just as significant as his skills at the point of play are.

And if you ever needed an illustration of how a mental edge can be significant, you only needed to wait a week.

Springboks 53 Wallabies 8, Ellis Park
Springbok pride had been stung, and they came to Johannesburg with bitter revenge on their minds.

That’s how it’s supposed to work on the Dark Continent, and the press had been particularly vicious after the 15-27 loss at Durban because the expected backlash from the previous week, after the 0-19 loss to New Zealand in Cape Town, had never eventuated.

The Springboks had spent a long second week like caged animals, being tormented and taunted with barbs and insults in true South African style, so that whoever was blocking the light when their cage door was opened would be torn apart.

The Wallabies were just the vessels containing the blood that Ellis Park needed to be soaked with.

The Springboks were, by any criteria of measurement, magnificent. They dominated every area of play and by the eightieth minute were sublime.

Turning the tables on any Tri Nations opponent is hard enough, but in successive weeks and by a record margin made one for the history books.

The Springbok habit of running hot and cold week to week is no new phenomenon, of course, but if the scale of victory emphasised that, it was no big story compared to the one where an integrated South African side’s unpopular new style finally bore fruit.

Wing Jongi Nokwe scored a record-breaking four tries, injuring himself in the acting of grounding the ball for his fourth.

I don’t care which style of rugby you prefer, old-fashioned or new-fangled both are vindicated by a winger scoring four tries in the same corner.

Loosehead prop Tendai Mtawarira not only destroyed the Wallaby scrum, he tackled and stole possession like a test class flanker.

In a country where most of rugby’s hard core up until this test match regarded these two and others of their colour as token selections, their barn-storming performances were a much-needed tonic for the advocates of change.

Coach Peter de Villiers, saddled with the same unfortunate pigmentation as Nokwe and Mtawarira, and therefore receiving less patience than some of his equally unsuccessful white predecessors, bought himself a stay of execution.

You may happily believe any South African who claims not to harbour these prejudices, but laugh in the face of any who claim those prejudices have been completely removed in the South African rugby environment.

Meanwhile some fools, whose knowledge of test rugby is about as deep as the puddle I left last time I relieved myself outside, have suggested that Robbie Deans was boxing clever, knowing they could lose and still go into the Brisbane test with the Tri Nations resting on its outcome, that the Wallabies didn’t try their hardest.

As Bart Simpson once said: bull honky.

Deans may have used the opportunity to rest some key players, having earned that luxury the hard way, but no test side can afford to take a fifty point thrashing anywhere without it undermining team confidence.

Let alone with the All Blacks next up.

I found such suggestions about as ludicrous as the Wallabies found them offensive.

New Zealand has rotated test squads in recent years, and found out the hard way how easily the policy can backfire in big matches.

For the Wallabies, having less international quality depth, it doesn’t have to be a big match to get bitten by such a strategy and against the Springboks in South Africa, it may have been a little ambitious.

Deans, however, was in a position to roll the dice.

He did so and lost, but it was the first major test drubbing he has suffered and he has never been scared to try things.

In Super 12 and 14 he has successfully rotated more squads at altitude than any other coach. Who can blame him for the odd high risk, high reward gamble at test level, especially with impunity?

All Blacks 101 Samoa 14, Yarrow Stadium
Just because no-one really believed Samoa were a serious threat, that was no reason to doubt the All Blacks when they said they weren’t taking their opposition lightly.

Taking underdogs lightly is usually the first step on the way to an upset, and the All Blacks know this better than anyone because very few of their losses aren’t regarded as upsets. They had to put on an accurate and stable display against Samoa in New Plymouth, and let the scoreline take care of itself.

The main risk apart from overconfidence was from injury. Because the long gap between Tri Nations fixtures potentially left the All Blacks short of a gallop, there was no benefit in only giving the second fifteen a run.

This was a chance to solidify combinations, and that meant putting world class players in harm’s way.

The typical Islander tackling style involves a lot of brawny forearms and harder-than-average skulls flying around the contact area at mouthguard height. But there is never anywhere to hide in test rugby, regardless of the opposition, and players are defined as world class not just because of princely skills but also their durability.

In Test rugby, durability is what demographers call a preferred value attribute.

Every time a team of Islanders plays New Zealand there is talk beforehand about extreme physicality and the danger of injury, but more often than not the toll is no worse than a broken nose (Andrew Mehrtens via Fiji’s Nicky Little in Wellington 2002) or a bleeding head (Leon MacDonald, same match, when his “lead with the cheekbone” technique was still being refined at international level) and the real casualties are usually among the All Blacks’ opposition.

Most of their starting fifteen carted off with limbs still spasming, after crushing, early-season, fired-up All Black gang-tackles.

Such was the case here, and the Samoan tacklers also seemed to injure themselves more than their intended victims.

The only All Black injuries were to Mils Muliaina, the fullback taking a bang on the knee early but carrying on until half-time trying to run out the bruise, a shoulder knock for lock Anthony Boric, and a smack on the jaw for wing Anthony Tuitavake, a la MacDonald.

As preparation for the biggest test of the year, the risk of injury was realistically faced by the top side, and well worth taking.

With Robbie Deans and the Wallabies knowing that only eighty more minutes remain in their season, and with slippery conditions likely, Brisbane could not be a more hostile environment for New Zealanders in general and the All Blacks in particular.

The All Blacks will need to do some more work on their lineout, that’s for sure. The rest of their drills were almost flawless, until the bench was emptied at least, and rhythms were upset.

But if the New Zealand throwers, jumpers and lifters struggled for accuracy against Samoa, they will definitely need to improve to face the Wallabies.

While the Australian lineout was one of the worst-performed areas of their thrashing in Johannesburg, that poor performance can be seen as an aberration considering their usually faultless display, and they probably won’t repeat it.

The All Blacks, on the other hand, have had lineout inaccuracy as a creeping disease since the last few years of Sean Fitzpatrick’s tenure.

Their neat lineouts against the massive Springboks at Cape Town last month, while pleasing, were less familiar in recent times than the typically ugly display they managed against Samoa.

Front-of-the-lineout ball will suit our purposes just fine, surely. If they can arrest an almost bloody-minded tendency to go long unnecessarily (wanting to give Wayne Smith’s strike moves an extra yard of room, a yard they shouldn’t need in order to work), and not over-correct by resorting to sneaky short throws, they can set a platform stable enough for Dan Carter to unleash his arsenal from.

But there’s something far more important than lineouts in play here.

With the Tri Nations trophy and Bledisloe Cup on the line, not to mention the risk of a Graham Henry-coached side losing a test series to one coached by Robbie Deans, Brisbane has that familiar look about it, of a test where mental strength will be the deciding factor.

We’ve won many tests against Australia with our lineouts in disarray, but very few when our minds aren’t right.

In the context that saw New Zealand as visitors, at a fixture upon which the probable outcome of a tournament rested, and against the reigning world champions, then…

Smith try
Carter misses conversion 5-0
Carter misses penalty
Carter misses penalty
Carter misses penalty
Montgomery misses penalty
Montgomery misses penalty
Carter try
Carter lands conversion 12-0
Carter misses penalty
Carter misses drop
Carter misses drop
Mealamu try
Carter lands conversion 19-0

…tells a very simple tale, that of a comprehensive rout.

Such a rout also removes any need for itemising the poor efforts of officials involved and the tactics employed to increasingly comic lengths by the vanquished hosts, allowing us to concentrate solely on a clinical performance by the visitors to find not just how but why it happened.

The margin of the win was one thing, but its character was another. It was never about the Springboks, they were always going to play the way they did. They always do. The victory was born on the whiteboards of the All Black tacticians, its margin depending on the successful execution thereof, but the positive nature of the All Blacks’ play also created its own self-sustaining momentum and swept all other petty considerations such as niggle and incompetent officials aside.

The All Blacks’ precision made any Springbok game plans ineffective. The fight was never easy, of course, but one side effect of the All Blacks’ relentless commitment in greater numbers and closer understanding between team-mates was the creation of confusion amongst the Bokke… increasing incrementally with each forced error, and by full-time the Springboks had been utterly dissected.

Back in the days before New Zealand’s aura of invincibility was fractured (when the black brand piggy-backed rugby into a major world sport and professionalism levelled the playing field), hunting as a pack and controlling territory by maintaining defensive pressure were things the All Blacks did on autopilot.

We took it for granted. Body positions were low, all halves, five-eighths and fullbacks kicked with both feet, set piece ball was sacred, and you held onto possession rather than risking transactions in contact.

I got a lot more sleep last century.

Now in these heady times, when we seem prepared to select brutes based on their body mass index and we squander opportunities to win World Cups by playing fifteen-man hot potato, I get a little misty-eyed when I see the All Blacks return to the ways of old.

Flanker Richie McCaw’s leadership of the black forwards, always at the point of play, was one of the main building blocks. He strode the Newlands turf like a colossus, dominating the breakdown area from the opening whistle… charging, tackling, distributing and even kicking artfully for centre Conrad Smith’s opening try. I’ve never seen a captain of any side not only be the best player on the park but also successfully correct refereeing decisions. Every other piece in the All Blacks’ puzzle fell into place, as his team followed wherever he led them.

Given the clean ball he loves, Dan Carter’s capitalisation on every advantage was swift. His territorial kicking was subtle and authoritative. The tension only remained so high because his uncharacteristically wayward goalkicking kept the lead at five points, and there were times in the scoreless hour following that opening try when the All Blacks had to defend their line, but they did so convincingly whenever required and never lost their grip on the match.

Following McCaw’s lead, the other All Blacks became like a giant multi-celled organism, their functions all hard-wired responses in optimum conditions. They seemed to understand each other’s roles implicitly.

Trying to play catch-up but with few sound options, the Springboks kicked the ball not only dead twice but out on the full at least three times. With quick throws they placed themselves under further pressure, the All Blacks punishing every uncertainty. At times in desperation South Africa made a little ground and stretched the New Zealand defence somewhat, but it always held.

With the pressure on the home side increasing steadily, the All Blacks delivered a mortal blow with fifteen minutes remaining. Carter saw the defence split by successive phases wide right and wide left, then ran straight and hard at the line. Reaching out in the tackle of two Springboks, he grounded the ball one-handed behind his head.

Wild-eyed now and making poor decisions in the face of the relentless fifteen-man assault, the Springboks took yet another quick throw then hurled an injudicious pass to where Keven Mealamu was waiting, and the All Blacks’ replacement hooker strolled over to complete the scoring.

In the past, bad officiating has cost New Zealand the occasional test match victory… but probably no more than any other team. In this win, although the standard of refereeing was as low as I can remember this year, the All Blacks’ performance was such that the incompetent officials became irrelevant. The world champion Springboks were comprehensibly thrashed.

A colleague had suggested after the magnificent showing at Eden Park that if that standard became a benchmark, it soon wouldn’t matter who the opposition was. Now, with two complete performances coming in successive tests, a return to the days of the All Blacks having an aura of invincibility is a very real possibility.

Buried under a landslide of their own errors in Sydney the previous weekend, they endured a long week of quite strident criticism. Not all of it had been reserved for Sione Lauaki, but it came as no surprise when the All Blacks performed better without the out-of-form and too-bulky number eight. Lauaki was deservedly back playing Air New Zealand Cup rugby with Waikato, although ineffectually (more on that later).

Returning to his usual position at the back of the scrum and relieved of the captaincy duties which sat so uncomfortably with him, Rodney So’oialo typified the All Blacks desire to impose themselves on the game with far greater urgency. Jerome Kaino was given sole charge of the blindside flank, and the great Richie McCaw was back in the openside role. It wasn’t just the return of McCaw that changed things. His contribution was huge, admittedly, but the loose forward mix was balanced by having specialists in all positions.

McCaw was at pains to point out after the game that the loose forwards’ job was made easier this week because the tight five they operated around were functioning smoothly. Amidst all the high-scoreline euphoria, the captain’s praise was as insightful as it was modest. The tight forwards were the real stars on the night.

How many All Black lineouts have you seen over the last decade where ball was lost or at least too untidy to use effectively? How many teams had begun to expect poor lineout drills from New Zealand and been able to plan accordingly, as if they already owned the touchlines? How many times were you left wondering why our forwards didn’t even bother to contest opposition throws, and why in failing to do so we’d so obviously only helped the opposition’s rhythm and further built their confidence?

For me the condition was advanced. With my teeth sore from grinding I would wake dripping with sweat, my last fitful recollection being Anton Oliver hurling steak pies at a brick wall while I screamed WHY DOWN THE BACK??? in his deaf ear.

During this test, as I watched black jumpers destroy the Wallaby pattern throw after throw, I actually became light-headed from the strong dose of medicine I had done without for so long. Kaino was a revelation with his ability to shrink the Australian targets, and in the completion of his core set-piece tasks Ali Williams was so destructive that I forgave him his frequent lapses of handling and judgement in the later phases.

Williams’ absence from the breakdown aside, the All Blacks tight five were virtually flawless in their execution. They served up a steady stream of attacking ball from lineouts and scrums, and hunted like a pack at the breakdown.

Enjoying their sudden wealth of quality ball, Jimmy Cowan and Dan Carter played a clever territorial game and kicked the Wallabies out of the match. Maintenance of pressure brought about many Australian errors, and the All Blacks capitalised.

Prop Tony Woodcock and second five Ma’a Nonu scored two tries each, giving New Zealand a valuable bonus point. Nonu’s second on the stroke of full-time was awarded by the TMO when it could well have been denied, and the try was perhaps undeserved anyway because the Hurricanes midfielder had all but butchered it by ignoring his support, but the scoreline was already so emphatic and it had been so long since the All Blacks had received a lenient ruling that I counted the bonus point as a well-earned one.

In previous weeks it had seemed as if the All Black forwards were headless chickens at times, out of position and infringing far too frequently at the tackle, missing from defensive positions around the fringes and far too easily isolated when carrying the football.

At Eden Park they were almost telepathic in their understanding, and genuinely fierce rather than over-drilled or merely methodical… suddenly they seemed more like stormtroopers, zealots to a righteous cause.

The hunger was back, in other words. They were more than simply stung by the week’s worth of criticism. They looked as if they had accepted it as wholly deserved, and understood exactly what the missing ingredient was… unity.

Starting with Kapa o Pango was a good sign. A truly spine-tingling challenge signalled that they now deemed the Wallabies worthy of a respect they had not granted them in Sydney, but also signalled that they were about to demand some of their own. Tu iho nei!

In Sydney they had tried too often to run ball out of their own half instead of kicking to keep the ball in front of their pack.

Disrespectful.

They had fanned out across the field, forwards and backs alike, the forwards ready to run with ball that hadn’t been won yet at the last ruck or maul they were absent from. Neither were they marking up on the blind or in guard positions when ball was turned over at these very breakdowns.

Disrespectful.

In the face of such arrogance and neglect, at Homebush the Wallabies had needed to do little more than feed off the All Blacks’ frequent errors. At Eden Park there weren’t any of real significance.

This used to be a hallmark of All Black rugby, the core tasks being completed ruthlessly so that an edge in fitness and athletic ability could be exploited. Giving opposition the proper respect was always the clear message. There were no short cuts to victory at test level, challenges up front must be met before they could be bettered.

Occasionally an opposition team would rise to meet such high standards, and great tests would result.

But recently as a tendency to sometimes abdicate those responsibilities has crept into our game, in other nations’ eyes we had begun to seem as if we regarded ourselves as automatically better than everyone else… Special in some way (other than the Olympics at which we win our only gold medals anymore).

Well, we’re not special. Even when the All Blacks execute a game plan flawlessly, and end up putting great performances like this one on the park, all they are doing is fulfilling an obligation to give their best.

In this era, that’s just called being professionals.

In round one of the Air New Zealand Cup there were three freakish upsets. Firstly, Waikato were tipped over 10-18 by Northland in Whangarei on Thursday night. Not even the late introduction of demoted All Black Sione Lauaki could save them from the tenacity of the Northland effort (it may have, if Lauaki hadn’t seemed almost as out of his depth at provincial level as he had the week before at test level).

The Northland win on Thursday was surprising enough, but the shock was exceeded by Manawatu toppling Canterbury 25-24 in Christchurch on Saturday. Turning every Canterbury error into an instant territorial gain, the Green Machine kept hammering away and the nerve of the young Cantabrians failed. After an intercept by first five Matty James in the first half, two late tries by Manawatu wing Andre Taylor were enough for a famous late victory. Canterbury were left looking quizzically at the officials when a good-looking late penalty attempt was waved wide, but no replay was available to fan the flames of controversy.

Then on Sunday Counties-Manukau provided the weekend’s icing on the cake, a 17-6 win over Auckland in Pukekohe. Every Auckland handling error was cheered raucously by the locals, and each time as the visitors found themselves back-pedalling with fired-up Steelers breathing down their necks, the volume only increased. By full-time, with late tries making the win not only certain but a little embarrassing, it was deafening.

Tasman 7-8 Bay of Plenty
Northland 18-10 Waikato
Taranaki 20-13 North Harbour
Wellington 30-6 Hawke’s Bay
Canterbury 24-25 Manawatu
Southland 23-25 Otago
Counties-Manukau 17-6 Auckland

What was more significant concerning McCaw’s absence was the make-up of the loose forward mix. The chosen four were one recently-elevated openside specialist playing with three number eights, and when specialist Braid was subbed off early in the second half (when the All Blacks were leading) we then had three number eights on the park.

Sione Lauaki’s introduction at number eight and the reshuffle of the other two loosies triggered a disastrous sequence. The All Blacks had already struggled at the breakdown, where the three Wallaby specialists were relishing the battle against a New Zealand side much reduced in experience and skill for once. When Lauaki trundled clumsily into the midst of proceedings, the All Blacks’ game, based around forwards and backs linking, completely fell apart.

Every time Lauaki touched the ball… and usually in such situations when I say “every time” I’m exaggerating, but this time I mean EVERY TIME HE TOUCHED THE BALL… the Wallabies were gifted possession via poor ball security. The more he tried to get involved, the more possession he squandered. It was truly horrible to watch, and the walls of the War Room were spattered with foam from my frequent cursing.

I never agreed with the selectors’ original faith in this guy (not to mention their continuing faith in him, when the Kelston BHS old boy has officially coughed up well more than half the possession he’s been given in his sixteen tests)… and when he scratched his nuts for the cameras outside that French hotel last year I actually turned away from the image in shame… now, after his latest total and utter failure on the field, I’m beginning a campaign to stop him ever sullying a black jersey again.

Lauaki wasn’t the only offender, of course. Greg Somerville and Ma’a Nonu, two other hot-and-cold munters with dubious credentials, also spilled everything they were given in the first half.

Others were guilty of far less, maybe one or two each at the most, and this constant rash of missed tackles and handling mistakes may already have been enough against a highly motivated, ruthlessly focused and very thoroughly coached Australian team. Without Lauaki’s contribution, we may still have lost by one point instead of fifteen.

Robbie Deans had the Wallabies humming. The Crusaders style that had blown away the Springboks a week before had been further honed and distilled. The usual heroics from Dan Carter and Mils Muliaina were never going to be enough in the face of Wallaby numbers beating the All Blacks to the breakdown, when a green midfield combination without McCaw’s support was already struggling behind the advantage line and the tight forwards were constantly isolating themselves.

The signs weren’t good from the outset. Somehow Jay Laga’ia was chosen to sing the national anthem, and he butchered it in much the same way an American Idol contestant might chew the gums off an Ella Fitzgerald classic, with unnecessarily hammy trills tacked onto what used to be quite an austere melody. Some Sydney bros homesick for Maorioke loved it, but I could see the All Blacks’ teeth grinding as they were once again forced on camera into straight-facing another extended ending to the anthem… this one the worst they’d heard for a while, when they’d really like to finish simply each time with a backslap.

Whether God is defending it or damning it, it’s Zea-ea-land, not Zea, ee-ee-ee, ee-laaaaaaaand.

Sigh.

Australia, let’s face it, looked about eight IQ points higher. Athletic ability is one thing, and an area where New Zealand stocks are high, but smarts on a rugby field are far more valuable if the more athletic team are making basic errors. With wolfish grins the Wallabies swallowed every pill coughed up by the visitors.

That they were confident enough in such a high pressure situation, to calmly kick it back to the All Blacks via the left-footed Matt Giteau or right-footed Berrick Barnes and then feed off the errors, was testimony to Deans. The Wallabies have blown a lot of leads over the All Blacks in recent years with dummies coaching. This was classic Deans, a la the Antarctic Bledisloe test at Christchurch in 2002 and countless Crusader dismantlings of oppositions over the years… punish errors instantly… put it behind them, come up in a line, bust the ball loose and feed off compound errors in their half.

The Wallabies were magnificent, and this was their night from the kick-off. They were pounding away early at the New Zealand tryline when Brad Thorn threw out a stiff arm worthy of Victor Matfield and got himself sin-binned, but they found their way instantly back into the New Zealand half after the penalty via Lote Tuqiri’s weaving run. The tacklers strewn in his wake were the ones missing from the defensive line ten seconds later on the blind, when ball was recycled quickly for Matt Giteau’s quick-handed transfer to Ryan Cross, who went around from the corner to under the posts.

Double digits up quickly, the Sydney crowd got involved. Who’s to say if Craig Joubert, one of the more lenient African referees, liked being cheered rather than booed when he whistled? He seemed to have his back turned to some off-the-ball play, and I could only go by television pictures with New Zealand commentators, but the overall impression I got despite the broadcast complaints was that the Wallabies were way down the filth scale from the Springboks, and that Joubert’s occasional adrenalin blindness put him less than halfway up the Wayne Barnes-o-meter.

At this stage his rulings were inconsequential. Thorn had more than earned his yellow card. The All Blacks replied to the Australian try with a beauty from Mils Muliaina, who broke clear out of his own half after a quick tap then kicked, regathered and found support, then drove for the line superbly when others looked to have almost lost control of the ball.

Simple evasion in blind side space from scrum ball saw Giteau thread clear, Cross backed up and threw wide to fullback Adam Ashley-Cooper who kicked ahead for Tuqiri then wing Peter Hynes to get toes to the ball quicker and the in-goal bounce. That twelve-point lead was good until just before half-time, when the All Blacks took a quick tap and hooker Andrew Hore first sidestepped then bulldozed his way over for a tremendously heartening score.

The All Blacks claimed a lead for the first and only time after the break when yet another quick tap by Andrew Ellis saw the halfback finish for a try after Carter had blown the Wallabies defence wide open, and found support in Nonu who for almost the first time in the match retained possession when tackled.

And this doom I was on about before? So far this all seems quite routine, Bledisloe 101, right? Hell yes… aside from Somerville and Nonu’s hooves letting them down, we had a cracking test match on our hands.

Then on came Lauaki for Braid.

Ellis was also subbed off for Jimmy Cowan, in the first of no less than three All Black halfback swapsies in the second half that the Wallabies looked justifiably angered by. The increasingly butter-fingered replacement hooker Keven Mealamu took the dependable Hore’s place, too, but the Lauaki-Braid swap was fundamental to the outcome from this point.

Inneffectual at the first breakdown, cleaned out easily by George Smith… watching idle ten feet away at the next turnover, then a missed tackle on Luke Burgess… blind when the Wallabies went open, open when they went blind… watched first Ashley-Cooper then flanker Rocky Elsom stroll past him for the go-ahead try… Lauaki’s first five minutes may as well have been spent still watching from the sideline. There were only fourteen functioning All Black neocortexes on the field.

Lauaki then immediately lost possession the first time he handled after the try. His first and only useful act since entering the fray came soon afterwards, when he won possession back with an aggressive tackle… but only after someone hospital-passed the Wallaby hooker, with Lauaki practically offside and Joubert asleep again.

This possession led to the All Blacks almost scoring through Sitiveni Sivivatu, who toed ahead and looked certain to score but for being tackled without the ball by Hynes in one of the more blatant examples of this infringement ever seen.

Referee Joubert looked totally and strangely disinterested in the details of the complicated, high-speed tryline exchange. Everyone in the stadium seemed to spot the obstruction but him.

He held a quick conference instead with the sideline officials and All Blacks manager Darren Shand, who were debating the legality of Ellis somehow having found his way back onto the pitch in Cowan’s place. Cowan returned a few minutes later, having found some blood from somewhere to satisfy the doctors that he was kosher.

The penalty try possibility was never discussed with any of the officials, and the upshot was that the lead had been surrendered by the All Blacks and not regained. While already up there at the expected Sydney Bledisloe level for sheer excitement, even now it didn’t beat some tests we’ve seen for controversy. Joubert was no worse than usual in the current environment. Paddy O’Brien probably gave him an A minus. Incompetent officials are an ongoing blight on the game and the necessary forbearance when criticising them still makes veins stand out on my forehead, but I’m getting used to it these days and there were yet plenty of ways out from under this Wallaby yoke.

Except when your designated impact player can’t make the gain line… and let alone if he can’t even hold onto the ball when stopped short of it.

Lauaki went on to hand over possession no less than six more times, in each instance holding the ball either one-handed or otherwise injudiciously at the tackle. The third of these shellings led directly to a Giteau dropped goal. Lauaki also got penalised at a breakdown and, after having turnstiled Elsom for the try that gave Australia the final lead, missed three more vital tackles, one on lock James Horwill who took advantage to score the coup de grace and post the final 34-19 humiliation on the scoreboard.

Mose Tuiali’i, Kieran Read, Liam Messam and others might still be in the picture, if the All Black selectors are prepared to admit the obvious… that changes to this squad are not just necessary but overdue. With two losses in a row for the first time since 2004, and the biggest losing margin since 1999 at the same venue, this was a loss that sent a dread chill through more than just the odd heart.

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Schalk Burger is absolutely loving this, playing the All Blacks without Jerry Collins breathing down his neck. The absence of Richie McCaw is another matter.

McCaw would be making our pack’s work at the breakdown more efficient, linking between the forwards and backs more effectively, and supporting the ball carrier like no one else can.

But of recent All Blacks, only Collins would be able to inflict the sort of damage Burger is capable of, and the big blond gorilla is punishing the lighter New Zealanders with great relish now he has officially the hardest nut on the park.

Collins was once described as looking like a black stocking full of golf balls. The physical toll he took on his enemies was immense.

With him terrorising the opposition and making them flinch when approaching contact, the All Blacks enjoyed a psychological edge even over such brutes as Sebastian Chabal.

That edge is gone, and Schalk Burger has inherited the mantle of world’s meanest. He hurls himself into the fray like a berserker, and any men who don’t instinctively duck under his swinging arms often wake up seeing stars.

Collins used to sort him out in the first half hour, catching him under the chin with the top of the head, forcing him to lower his sights and tackle properly if he didn’t want to bite off his own tongue.

But no All Blacks at present seem to have the stomach for it. Ali Williams went in sideways at Carisbrook, hesitantly … losing momentum before the collision, just like he did against Chabal last year. And once again he came off second best.

Sione Lauaki is physically equipped to take Burger on, but the All Blacks risk too much of the finesse necessary against serious, Tri Nations opposition if they dare to start him.

In other words, we’re stuck with trying to out-manoeuvre the Springboks now that we can’t outmuscle them, so when we lack the touch of McCaw and our breakdown work suffers we’re in trouble.

That’s my take on what happened at Carisbrook, where the All Blacks ended a ten year unbeaten record at home against the Springboks on Saturday night. It might (once again) sound arrogant to assert that this was a game the All Blacks could and probably should have won, but it was certainly there for the taking.

Within twenty minutes, however, Burger had flattened the pivotal Dan Carter and Williams our lineout lynchpin with withering high shots, and the All Blacks were unable to reply in kind because they lacked a hitman suitable for the job, someone to bust Burger’s mouthguard loose half full of teeth … plus, they tend not to respond aggressively enough to such tactics these days, probably taking their roles as ambassadors a little too seriously.

No paunchy middle-aged desk jockey should feel comfortable suggesting that ANY current All Black might lack the necessary amount of mongrel, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to suggest that whatever mongrel the All Blacks DO possess isn’t being properly harnessed or encouraged.

Was the sidelining of Brad Thorn enough to take virtually all our aggression away? The Springboks are abrasive at the best of times, abrasive enough to make some opponents leery and many look like pussies. But not the All Blacks, surely?

The 30-28 loss in Dunedin should be a wake-up call. The All Blacks were ripped apart up the middle, and although some players such as Mils Muliaina at fullback were simply heroic, if we have to look to numbers as high as fifteen before we find someone having a good game then something’s wrong.

It doesn’t matter how brilliant Carter and his midfielders or three-quarters are, if they’re getting untidy ball from set piece and slow ball going backwards at ruck time, they’ll look like an English backline in a heartbeat.

The test was a fierce spectacle at least, despite the predations of Australian officials. Matt Goddard and his girlfriends James Leckie and Paul Marks were intrusive and out of their depth.

If Paddy O’Brien’s agenda was to showcase the ELVs he couldn’t have chosen a worse threesome, but at least when the out-of-breath Goddard remembered to remove the whistle from his mouth while running the two teams displayed a great appetite for running rugby.

It was frantic stuff, largely error-free, with every phase hotly contested. Some mystifying rulings at the breakdown were unwelcome punctuations, and the liberal sprinkling of penalties instead of freekicks provided most of the scoring opportunities, but the crowd saw great fluidity when the pace of play left the florid and sweaty Goddard behind. Somehow, luckily, infringements balanced out so the whistle tended to favour no particular team.

The Springboks took a 14-12 lead with the first try, Joe van Niekerk running blind off the back of an attacking scrum and putting JP Pietersen in at the corner, then Butch James soon dropped a neat goal to extend the margin. Carter’s fifth penalty made the half-time lead 17-15 to the visitors.

The All Blacks regained the lead with a terrific try after the interval, replacement Lauaki finishing when first centre Conrad Smith and then halfback Andy Ellis drew tacklers but kept their arms free for offloads. A long series of drives had seen the All Blacks sweep upfield, most of the fifteen men handling and advancing as continuity was maintained through multiple phases.

Two more three-pointers apiece were exchanged, including a snapped dropkick from Carter off-balance. At 28-23, the game was still poised on a knife edge.

Then Springbok half Ricky Januarie, who had been successfully probing gaps around the fringes of the ruck all night, made the decisive play. Selling Keven Mealamu and Ellis his opposite a giant dummy, he galloped through a gaping hole. Chipping Leon MacDonald easily, the bounce favoured him and he scored the match-winner.

There were a few minutes left to try and set Carter up for a winning dropkick, but the All Blacks could not do it. It takes a big pack sucking in lots of defenders to set up a sure pot, and that kind of muscle was beyond the New Zealanders at the death just as it had been all night against the huge Africans.

What we’re now searching for is a number six of genuinely intimidating size and demeanour, someone to compliment the skills and workrate of McCaw and Rodney So’oialo.

We have plenty of fast flankers, stars of seven-a-side like Adam Thomson and Liam Messam, and there is talk this week of elevating Daniel Braid to the role of specialist openside during McCaw’s convalescence.

But Braid won’t cut it.

Neither would any other conventional fetching breakaway, brought in to fill that role when So’oialo can cover it quite adequately.

I don’t even see why they think a fetching number seven is the answer to their problems. What we need is another beast like Collins, and if we can’t find one then a specialist number six with real size.

I have no idea why the selectors snubbed Collins with such finality this year. Some say it’s because he told Graham Henry he wasn’t happy with McCaw as a captain, which if true was a pretty stupid thing to say.

But with Jerry gone, for whatever reason, we need the next best thing at least.

They didn’t seem to want Kieran Read either, their reasoning equally unclear, so it’s beyond me what they’re thinking if Chris Masoe is who they initially bring in to cover McCaw but then they also elevate Braid. Is it just against Australia that they need him, and are the ELVs really so significant a factor?

McCaw should be back by the time we play South Africa again (Cape Town, August 16th), but meanwhile a search should begin in earnest for the next Jerry Collins.

Butch James was, also as usual, the most blatant if not the worst offender. Within the first ten minutes he had flown headlong at Dan Carter three times either high or late with the obvious intention of fouling him or at least unsettling him. Carter not only proved hard to rattle but responded with some inspired touches and kicking, so the scheme backfired.

James is obviously a whack job, a dangerous thug whose horrendous tackling methods somehow always seem to escape the permanent wrath of the judiciary… perhaps (a) because his team always loses when he offends most often, (b) he seems motivated to offend most often against New Zealand teams, and (c) New Zealand teams don’t tend to bother citing when they win.

If Carter, meanwhile, was ever to mark James again he might as well kick him in the groceries first chance he gets after kick-off, and assume it was self defence.

Bakkies Botha was another with a bad attitude, flying in with late forearm shots on players such as Rodney So’oialo and Ma’a Nonu whenever the referee’s eyes followed the ball, leaving opportunities for late contact.

Brad Thorn had endured enough when Springbok captain John Smit shoved the back of his head after the whistle. He picked him up and thumped him onto the deck, like a buzzcut Kong flipping a Combi van. The humiliation to their captain brought six angry Bokke hurtling instantly to the fray, then All Blacks skipper Rodney So’oialo joined to guarantee an all-in.

From that point on it was pretty much New Zealand’s night. South Africa scored the first try, a surprise Jean de Villiers break putting Bryan Habana away, but it didn’t give the Springboks the lead because Carter had already kicked the All Blacks six points clear and James couldn’t convert. The half-time score was 9-8 to the home side.

The All Blacks scrum and lineout were both solid at this stage, which was doubly important because there was no Richie McCaw to provide ball from turnovers, and in the freezing wet conditions being able to trade such possession for territory was crucial.

Carter in particular did this very well. His territorial kicking was long and accurate, and he eschewed the touchline in favour of pure distance, leaving the Springboks to be the ones kicking for touch and giving most of the lineout throws to New Zealand.

The scrum became more clearly dominant after the break, and with the Springbok backline beginning most set piece attacks flat-footed the All Black midfield defence had an advantage. Aside from the blind side de Villiers breach for Habana’s try there were no more line breaks.

In the second half the All Blacks asserted themselves around the fringes and began to control the game more thoroughly. Few Springboks had energy left for niggle, with the fitter and faster All Blacks beating them by a yard to every breakdown.

Eventually the Africans had to crack, and predictably they did it late in a phase count after their defence had been well and truly exhausted. As Springbok backs and forwards struggled to reassemble some semblance of a defensive line, the All Black backs and forwards were combining seamlessly to send wave after attacking wave crashing into them. Carter finally worked a double round with prop Tony Woodcock then delayed a pass to set Thorn away, and Thorn drew the final tackler to put number eight Jerome Kaino crashing over.

Carter ran proceedings through to the final whistle, making grass-cutting tackles when necessary but most of the time keeping the ball in front of his pack and looking for the next chunks of territory to bite off. Another penalty gave them an unassailable 19-8 lead.

We approached this test wondering if our dam was cracked, whether having already lost Carl Hayman, Chris Jack, Jerry Collins and Aaron Mauger, now suddenly being without McCaw we were vulnerable… even at home, where we have been undefeated since 1999.

But the muscular approach of the past was not necessary. We did not need to do any more than stand up for ourselves, beat them with either pace or fitness, and keep pointing to the scoreboard. The physical tax which men like Hayman and Collins could extract was never other than extra motivation for big, hulking outfits like the Springboks. Those were always the sort of contests they relished and responded well to. It was always our pace of play that upset them most, and under the ELVs this was accentuated.

What’s more, the South African Super 14 franchises struggling with the new laws in 2008 should probably have been seen as a sign that their national side was always going to struggle. I wonder, now that we’ve seen the Springboks look so ill-suited to the new environment, if certain pundits wouldn’t like to revise their predictions of the Wallabies finishing a distant third in the Tri Nations this year.

We also found in So’oialo the perfect leader for this situation. The public will not be able to tell whether or not a captain is a good choice until they find out what the team think of him. The moment where So’oialo unquestioningly waded in to help out Thorn was pivotal. The All Blacks to a man surged to his aid, showing exactly the kind of back-up only good captains get.

Tana Umaga had it too, that follow-me quality… also a Wellingtonian and a dreadlocked Samoan. As we begin our long march to the next World Cup, and must contemplate the possibility of having to play at least occasionally without McCaw, a back-up captain of So’oialo’s type will be a great asset.

The All Blacks were expected to thrash England in the second test at Christchurch and they did, but it cost them the services of their skipper and their best lineout forward for a month or so.

Ali Williams twisted his ankle after ten minutes, and Richie McCaw hyper-extended his around the half hour mark. Considering the sub-standard nature of the opposition, it was too high a price to pay.

Before the test New Zealanders, myself included, had already been talking about the real test of our strength beginning when the Tri Nations started. Now, going into the world’s toughest test series without McCaw and Williams, the examination of our strength and depth will be that much more thorough. Springboks and Wallabies, however, should be wary of any extra confidence springing from the news. New Zealand’s depth has usually been sufficient to beat them like gongs whenever the referee has had both eyes open.

Just such signs were clear even as McCaw limped from the play. Dan Carter had already sent debutant centre Richard Kahui away for a try before Ali Williams went down. With a tidy blindside scissors move, he ran aggressively to the exchange point but kept the defence guessing by carrying the ball in two hands. From the scrum immediately following McCaw’s injury Carter strolled in himself untouched.

Kahui and the other new cap, left wing Rudi Wulf, both made dummy runs straight back towards halfback Andy Ellis, whose pass went straight down a channel between the two of them to where Carter was drifting right into acres of space.

It was a Wayne Smith special. He calls them strike moves, planned moves from set play, and this one was beautifully executed.

I asked Tana Umaga about this once, offering as an example the brilliant fifteen-man try that Christian Cullen finished at Westpac Stadium in 2000 against the Wallabies. Umaga smiled at the memory, but told me the ones they all took most joy in were the ones they still executed cleanly even though some last split-second adjustment had to be made. He mentioned a Sitiveni Sivivatu try against the Lions in 2005. Passes had gone behind players, and runners had needed to adjust their timings slightly.

Umaga then spoke of how Smithy made players feel like they owned the moves themselves, soliciting their input as the moves were rehearsed and then tweaking them according to those discussions. This is what gave the players an ability to adjust whenever something unexpected happened or conditions weren’t optimal. In the second half against England, there was a perfect illustration… and, fittingly enough, it was a variation on the 2000 Cullen try in Wellington, in my opinion the best try ever planned.

In 2000, Anton Oliver threw to the back of a four-man attacking lineout, on the right hand touch between the ten metre line and twenty-two. Norm Maxwell and Todd Blackadder sucked all the Aussie jumpers to the front, so that when Taine Randell hoisted Ron Cribb ten feet in the air down the back he was jumping unopposed, and could deliver the ball off the top to Justin Marshall. The ball flew to Andrew Mehrtens, wide and deep. It was passed to Pita Alatini, who quick-handed to Alama Ieremia. Ieremia was running with Josh Kronfeld and the two props into a midfield set-up, while Mehrts was looping behind. The Aussies were all braced on the balls of their feet, looking wide-eyed at Jonah Lomu coming from way back with a head of steam up. When the ball was flipped to Mehrts before the dummy set-up even made contact, he worked the scissors with Jonah and no-one saw Umaga coming. Lomu back-handed to Umaga and he scythed through two players, who really only had time to stick their arms out and almost pat him on the back as he flew past. Christian Cullen was also at full gallop outside him, and Natty drew the fullback to give him an unopposed run in under the posts.

In 2008, with exactly the same field position, a similar short lineout had Anthony Boric being lifted down the back. He’d replaced Ali Williams and, without wanting to labour the point, looked born to the purple, but here he didn’t quite take cleanly. Greg Somerville however was alert at the back and tidied up. His immediate pass wide was the necessary adjustment allowing the beat to be kept, as Rodney So’oialo and the spare fatties went into their midfield set-up.

Instead of the first five and left wing scissoring, with the centre getting a back-hander, Ellis skipped to Carter with Kahui cutting back as dummy runner again and Carter popped it up for Sivivatu. In other words, it was a way of effecting the same left side line-break without having Jonah Lomu as the world’s best decoy. Sivivatu shrugged off the fullback and unloaded for Ma’a Nonu in Mike Tindall’s ineffectual tackle, so Nonu had no-one left in front of him… Wulf and Leon MacDonald were surplus to requirements once Siti had committed the extra tackler.

So this was another for Wayne’s highlight reel. It only took thirteen of the fifteen men to execute, but it may have a certain added eminence in Smithy’s mind because of the adjustment and brinksmanship required.

And my apologies are extended to any Australian subscribers… where England in 2008 and the Wallabies of 2000 are concerned, such All Black strike moves breaching them are the ONLY things that countenance me mentioning the two backlines in the same breath. In 2000 surplus attackers against the Wallabies were a rare luxury, while these days England’s midfield might turn a profit even greater than their inflated salaries if they charged a toll for every tackle waved past.

Once Tindall realised his inadequacy was becoming too obvious, he flopped on a ruck in the red zone and took a ten minute breather. The All Blacks opted for a scrum instead of a penalty shot, and Sione Lauaki scored coming off the back… resembling nothing more than a black snowplough parting the white English drifts.

England’s attack briefly came alive in Tindall’s absence, there being one less impediment between their forward pack and their three-quarters. Halfback Danny Care had already scooted over from a quick tap, and now fourteen Englishmen playing for little other than pride came up with a fine try against fifteen All Blacks.

The wings still had to inject themselves to find work, and when Topsy Ojo saw his forwards battering away without reward in a long recycling series of phases he took matters into his own hands to get the ball over the advantage line. Bouncing off defenders to within five yards of the New Zealand goalposts, he finally put the All Black defence on its heels. The ball went right, fullback Mathew Tait sent a pinpoint floating pass wide to where Tom Varndell was waiting, and the wing finished cleanly.

Jimmy Cowan replaced Ellis late and took revenge against his opposite number by scoring a try from a quick tap himself, right on the full-time siren, to post 44-12.

The question of who should replace McCaw and Williams for the first Tri Nations test against the Spingboks in Wellington now looms as our main worry.

Replacing Williams presents less problems. Taranaki’s Jason Eaton would normally seem the likeliest candidate, but the selectors appear to have such different key criteria these days so it’s best not to assume they won’t let him continue to get game time with the NZ Maori in a starting role.

Waikato’s Kevin O’Neill and Otago’s Tom Donnelly were two members of a wider training group they convened in late May, if the selectors chose not to disrupt the Maori program. The Maori have two more games in the Pacific Nations Cup, playing Japan in Napier on Saturday and then a winner-take-all match in Sydney against Australia A. Eaton would be a big loss for them.

Covering McCaw’s absence is a different matter entirely, the fact that he’s already irreplaceable notwithstanding. Auckland’s Daniel Braid, once again, is injured. The selectors specifically asked for a tape of the NZ Maori v Manu Samoa game, to study the form of Bay of Plenty’s Tanerau Latimer, because ideally they would like to find a specialist rather than further reshuffle a loose forward mix already full of utilities.

If they choose to switch So’oialo or Adam Thomson to the openside instead, reasoning that George Smith and the Wallabies are still five weeks away and they can get away with a makeshift fetching breakaway for the first two tests against the beefy Springboks, they might still elevate Canterbury’s Kieran Read or Mose Tuiali’i, maybe even Waikato’s Liam Messam.

Those are their options as I see them, but that’s as far as I’m prepared to go. No one seems to be able to accurately read the selectors’ minds right now.

The best news of the week for New Zealand was a staggering clean sweep by the Under 20s side at the IRB Junior World Championship in Wales… played 5, won 5, points for 242, points against 28.

In coming seasons watch for the names Ben Afeaki and Rodney Ah You (props), Chris Smith and Sam Whitelock (locks), Peter Saili, Nasi Manu and Luke Braid (loosies), Daniel Kirkpatrick and Ryan Crotty (five-eighths), Jackson Willison, Zac Guildford and Kade Poki (three-quarters), Trent Renata and Andre Taylor (fullbacks).

Apart from high work rates and breathtaking skill levels, all have the sort of attitudes that suggest they will handle lives as professional players well… maybe even better than this first generation of professionals, many who seemed to jump at every dollar waved in their faces.

There is also a curious dynamic evolving inside New Zealand’s rugby circles, and certainly becoming more prevalent since the special considerations given McCaw and Carter in their NZRU contracts were made public.

It’s a general acceptance that professional players need to weigh up their prospects carefully. Some will jump at the first offer they get, too impatient to wait in line paying dues, and some will regard a test career of any length as a pinnacle then immediately farm themselves out to European or Japanese clubs rather than understudy a true great. Others will aspire to be truly great All Blacks, holding the whip hand when it comes to current or future negotiations.

It’s all self-regulating. Go or stay, decide for yourself what’s right for you… and that in turn will (usually) tell us what we need to know about you.

A certain percentage will play out their latter days on fat Heineken Cup paypackets… what Rod Tidwell called “doing right by me and mine”, or “the Kwan”… and that will give as many opportunities to New Zealand youngsters in local competitions as it will block opportunities for European youngsters in theirs.

England Under 20, who New Zealand thrashed in the final, were on a nine game streak and had gone unbeaten through the Junior Six Nations competition, but only a handful had played in the Zurich Premiership and none had played in the Heineken Cup.

When they came up against New Zealand, with many players experienced at provincial level including three Super 14 players, they fell apart. With their national senior side doing likewise on their current tour, we can see clear evidence of what happens when the path of such youngsters is blocked by foreign professionals and old local warhorses.

In the last two years, an exodus of New Zealand’s elite players began to impact our current strength at top level. Carl Hayman, Chris Jack and Aaron Mauger would almost certainly have remained in the top selection bracket, and their unavailability forced an early elevation for others. The NZRU moved reasonably quickly to nip this trend in the bud by offering McCaw and Carter special deals, and in doing so demonstrated to the youngest professionals that there was now an extra tier in the pyramid to which they might aspire.

My regret over the premature departure of Hayman, Jack and Mauger aside… if European nations want to continue their grim slide at the expense of SANZAR nations, they need only continue their policy of luring away our jaded and impatient.

With Hayman still available for All Black selection I could have relaxed in the build-up to the test against England at Eden Park on Saturday night, that’s for sure, because about the only thing worrying me in the days before was how well our front row would stand up to the English fatties.

My fears proved more or less groundless, as it happened. For a while England appeared to be troubling us, but then it became apparent that any pressure Andy Sheridan was able to put Greg Somerville under was at least matched and probably exceeded by Neemia Tialata’s humiliation of Matt Stevens on the other side.

Our lineout was certainly shabby, but with the English being the only ones putting the ball into touch we only needed to win half our throws to have a bastardised kind of parity there.

The forward battle was ultimately decided at secondary phase, where New Zealand’s loosies had a clear edge in skill and mobility. Two weeks ago the selectors were being questioned for shifting Rodney So’oialo to six and Jerome Kaino to eight, but now people will begin to understand what they’ve hit upon, an almost perfect loose forward mix. Kaino in particular was exceptional, and the All Blacks only began to lose control of the game when he was replaced by Sione Lauaki. Lauaki dropped every ball he handled.

To begin with the tries were simply an illustration of a difference in class between the two backlines. Carter’s beautifully weighted stab kick that bounced perfectly for Conrad Smith’s opening try was the correct response to a backline coming up as flat as England’s was.

Next, off the back on an attacking scrum, the inside hole for Sitiveni Sivivatu easily created by eight Kaino and nine Andy Ellis was copybook, and Carter can finish off breaks made through such yawning chasms in his sleep.

It was getting to be one-way traffic. There would have been a third try before half-time, but an intercept by English wing Topsy Ojo turned it into a virtual fourteen-pointer down the other end.

A refocusing by the All Blacks during the interval saw their attack intensify further, and the English defence began to seriously haemorrhage. Second five Ma’a Nonu saw Charlie Hodgson in front of him, swatted him aside with almost outright scorn, and set up fullback Mils Muliaina in the corner. Sivivatu followed him over a few minutes later when the English line stretched and snapped again.

For some reason, the bench was emptied at this point (37-13 after fifty minutes). The All Blacks pattern shouldn’t have suffered so irreparably, and many reserves slotted in well in their individual positions, but Lauaki’s role as impact player demanded that he receive far more ball than his ball-protection skills warranted.

The game plan went to pieces, and the All Blacks were held scoreless for nearly half an hour. Ojo’s second try was a perfect example of how the All Blacks’ structure had broken down. Fullback Leon MacDonald got himself into first receiver position with prop Somerville playing halfback. When isolated and tackled, the too excitable MacDonald flung a risky (and therefore, considering the scoreline, inappropriate) pass into Somerville’s face.

With turnover ball and the All Black fullback buried, the English halfback saw his opportunity and banged the ball long. No one of course was at home, and Lauaki’s lack of urgency trundling back in cover suggested he didn’t expect any chasers, let alone Ojo.

37-20 was the final score, but the margin should probably have been more like thirty points. The English forwards bound together well and slowed New Zealand possession down as skillfully as ever, but after half an hour the referee was already pinging them at every second breakdown for going off their feet en masse. He had to yellow-card them twice when they stopped even being subtle about it.

Next week we should bend them to our will again, preserving our long unbeaten home run. The All Blacks themselves will be satisfied with nothing less than an increased margin AND a more thorough performance by themselves.

We might have to wait until the Tri Nations to find out how badly our relative strength has been dented. Hayman’s absence (or Chris Jack’s, for that matter) may only seem significant when we face opposition with more than a tight five to throw at us.

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As to whether it WAS made, I found it was not my place to comment once those entrusted with such a decision had made it. I said what I said beforehand, that Graham Henry’s reapplication stood in the way of Steve Hansen’s rightful elevation, and there were certainly others with strong credentials, but it was not my decision and I was actually glad it wasn’t. Who needs that responsibility?

What I don’t hold with is slating the reappointees personally. There are those, and God knows how they keep their jobs as columnists considering they’re drunk or asleep at their desk most days, who rail against the current administration in the most strident tones. They question not only credentials but integrity, and I imagine it takes every ounce of tolerance on the All Blacks selectors’ parts to stop themselves walking down to one particular newsroom and kicking a certain loudmouth’s teeth out.

Of course they stick to doing their talking on the field, and last Saturday’s test against Ireland was an opportunity for them to make a statement.

One man who you’d forgive for not being on fire from the opening whistle was Richie McCaw, who’d played more minutes of rugby than any other All Black during Super 14… and those minutes at the sharp end of some very bloody battles, Saturday after Saturday, playing the hotly contested breakdown under new laws. If he’d come out and played cautiously because an English referee was ruling under the old laws it would have been perfectly understandable.

Not McCaw. From the opening minute, with a barrelling turnover tackle on veteran Irish pivot Ronan O’Gara, the All Black captain signalled his intentions. By the time eighty minutes were up he had answered any of his or the coaches’ critics fairly emphatically.

He was at the very point of play the whole game, digging for unsecured Irish possession at every breakdown and separating man from ball pre-emptively wherever possible, while also leading from the front, straight over the advantage line and beyond, every chance he got.

The referee seemed blind to many Irish mistakes and especially harsh on some pretty positive efforts by the home side. As a result the game was tight from go to whoa. Many times in the miserable conditions there were moments when the match could have turned against the All Blacks. Each time McCaw was there to lead in the old-fashioned style, and once again proved not only his courage and versatility but inarguably his greatness.

The first try went to the All Blacks when ball from a messy lineout was recovered. With a driving maul penetrating well and the Irish back-pedalling, first McCaw then Dan Carter sent it wide. The blizzard they were running straight into the teeth of hardly lent itself to creative handling, but it doesn’t take too much actual razzle-dazzle to be effective. The All Blacks were confident and had chosen their moment correctly.

With the ball in two hands to keep the defenders from committing, centre Conrad Smith straightened and then drifted wide again at the very instant his marker faltered. It was a glorious piece of skill, reminiscent of Bill Davis at his best, and recognising the danger once through of being overrun Smith sent the long pass early to his left, where Sitiveni Sivivatu was ready to switch on the afterburners and go in at the south-east corner.

It was not only a fine piece of finishing and a classic piece of All Black rugby but also an authoritative statement in the wet.

The Irish, of course, have a well-documented problem with authority. Ironic then, that some friendly rulings gave them some much-needed continuity and they found themselves inside the All Blacks’ twenty-two soon afterwards, where they pounded away with their best attacking rugby of the night and created a hole on the blind side for their midfielders to exploit. Paddy Wallace went in for a timely reply.

Though stung, the All Blacks carried on with their patient recycling. Their scrum was dominant and they seemed to have parity or better in the slippery lineout battle, but the metres they were making around the fringes were what allowed them the most territorial leeway. From the tidy secondary phases Carter was able to smack the ball behind the Irishmen with great effect, which in turn led to their set pieces being under so much pressure.

Patience was rewarded when the Irish began to infringe regularly. The All Blacks had a fitness edge and were able to exhaust the fringe defenders with a constant driving barrage. Field position meant the Irish errors were punished by Carter and the scores were levelled at 11-11.

Then while Carter was kicking the All Blacks into a 14-11 lead halfway through the second half, McCaw was telling his troops that the time was right for twisting the heel on the throat.

The next few minutes saw the Irish defenders looking increasingly desperate as the All Blacks engaged top gear. Carter eventually broke through cleanly, running twenty metres as the cover converged, and when swamped he cleverly made the ball available but still protected it to give his chasing support an extra half second to close the gap.

As the Irish tried to regroup haphazardly the All Black forwards smashed into them, and if it hadn’t been props in possession when the pass to Ma’a Nonu was made, it may have been more sympathetic. As it was he received it flat-footed, but showed tremendous pace off the mark and once his thick trunk was moving forward he proved impossible to stop. He slid over dragging Irish defenders with him and the referee needed to check upstairs, but the TMO confirmed what the crowd already knew, that the match-winner had been scored.

Special mention is warranted by prop Neemia Tialata, who played eighty minutes and had to swap sides to cover when John Afoa was injured, and Carter, whose goal-kicking accuracy and almost mystical sense for the big moments once again proved crucial. I have already praised the modest McCaw as highly as he is probably ever prepared to accept.

But this 21-11 win was really most meaningful for the team-building skills of Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith. They are acutely aware of the pressure they are under this year (and probably next)… so long as the journalists react properly and give credit where it is due, this win will have done wonders for their self esteem.

No, scratch that… there were plenty who thought last week’s almighty Super 14 final lacked whatever it is to be called a good game (some even called it flat), so we won’t rely on them recognising what a fine test victory this was in Wellington. Anyway, Henry, Hansen and Smith will be looking neither to assist their comprehension if the reports are negative nor to gain any confidence from any positive assessments.

This was one for the team and its loyal supporters. The black jersey’s stock just went up.

Thank you to all those who enquired after my next book. I had intended to release one after the 2007 World Cup, like I did in late 2003 with From Twickenham to Homebush: Four More Years. That was a selection from four years’ worth of newsletters.

It was fatally flawed: reprinting newsletters as a collected edition was either a repeat read for the initiated or a dated introduction for anyone else. I resolved on the advice of a close friend that the next book would (for the sake of context) contain a sequential narrative thread running between the excerpts.

The failed 2007 World Cup campaign wasn’t what caused the delay to this next edition, it was the retention of the coaching staff that left me at a loss. There was no clear interval. It was a giant comma or elipsis rather than the full stop required. I had settled on a title immediately after the loss, Grown Men Wept, but then the story I thought I was recording simply didn’t end. I wondered about adding a subtitle, Grown Men Wept: This Is Not An Exit… it had a nice ironic double meaning, but I couldn’t refer to Henry’s continued tenure while exercising any actual perspective about it… being unable to do so, because the tenure wasn’t yet a finite entity.

I now plan to release the book as a collection when his tenure does conclude. Hopefully it will have a happy ending and the book will be called something positive, like Mana Restored: Defending Our Backyard… then again, sport is cruel, and maybe the title currently in limbo could have added meaning with yet another loss… no, hell, if we lose again in 2011 I might as well call it Beta Chimps.

The Super 14 final in Christchurch was one of those rare perfect games between two teams that are both peaking and both having complimentary styles.

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The Crusaders are archetypal fifteen-man counter-attackers, with a deadly accuracy in basic skills.

Their structure is maintained in every situation, built on a relentless platform of field position and strangling pressure. Continuity wears down defence, and lethal finishers make every yard pay eventually.

The Waratahs absorb pressure and force errors by exhausting patience. They doggedly slow ball down and feed off frustration, then equally lethal finishers capitalise on the opportunities created. Only great teams can force the issue against them because only great teams are able to score so necessarily late in the phase count.

For the first half hour, the Waratahs somehow prevented the flood of points that other teams would probably have conceded. The Crusaders game plan worked well and the visitors were stretched to breaking point time after time, but the Waratahs’ defensive pattern never fully broke down and their tryline remained uncrossed.

Twice down the other end, meanwhile, wing Lachlan Turner scored tries on the occasions that the Crusaders’ throttling pressure was broken and the Waratahs found themselves attacking. His first came from a wide kick, when Dan Carter was beaten in the air.

The second came when his captain Phil Waugh intercepted and the ball was recycled. Turner regathered his own chip, and the Crusaders were 12-3 down after having spent almost all of the first thirty minutes hammering away inside the Waratahs’ twenty-two.

If the Crusaders were mere mortals, frustration would have clouded their focus. But the Crusaders have a heavenly ability to rise to occasions, and the top gear they find in championship situations was engaged once again.

Stretching the Waratahs’ defence as before, they took play from one wing to the other, keeping their composure while jealously protecting possession.

As the advantage line was eventually broken and one tackler after another was sucked into the breakdowns, no player threw miracle passes or got isolated. The red and black wave kept crashing into the Waratahs’ defence until the overlap was created.

The Crusaders’ across-the-board skills mean that they remain potent even when their high numbers are buried at the bottom of rucks. They can finish off a late phase overlap with a lock and flanker giving the final pass to a number eight, which is what they did when Brad Thorn and Richie McCaw drew the last two tacklers to give Mose Tuiali’i a sight of the right hand corner flag.

The try brought the score to 12-11 at half-time, and Robbie Deans’ half-time speech encouraged them to seek more of the same, with patience and the discipline needed not to push passes. “Keep working” was his message for the second week running. The Waratahs would not be broken down easily by fifty-fifty passes and they would not make costly early phase errors. They must be pounded repeatedly and outlasted.

Tries to both teams were disallowed in the second half. Kurtley Beale’s score was brought back after his five-eighth partner Tom Carter was deemed offside at the preceding quick tap by the Crusaders. Then Wyatt Crockett toed the ball over the line down the other end only to have the score erased because the touch judge thought he had seen Thorn throw a punch five phases earlier.

Replays showed that Thorn had been shoulder-charged by opposite number Dan Vickerman, and his retaliation looked more threatening than actual. Nevertheless, Thorn was yellow-carded and the Crusaders were forced to play ten minutes with a one-man disadvantage.

By the time he returned the two teams had fought themselves to a virtual standstill. Carter had kicked the Crusaders into a 14-12 lead, and although neither team found a way through the defence for the remainder of the game the Crusaders played the game in the right half of the field and kicked two more goals, the first a Carter dropkick and the second a Carter penalty.

The Waratahs were out on their feet by the end, the effort of playing so long without the football taking its toll. The only possession they had managed to win was inside their own half, where they were obliged to play catch-up, and the Crusaders’ control increased incrementally as they remorselessly ratcheted the pressure.

When the final whistle blew with the home team leading 20-12, it was to bring down the curtain on a match of test match intensity. The Crusaders had deservedly won their seventh title.

Next morning, the All Black selectors named a 26-man squad for the three-test domestic sequence against Ireland and England.

They selected:

Mils Muliaina (Waikato) , Leon MacDonald (Canterbury), Sitiveni Sivivatu (Waikato), Anthony Tuitavake (North Harbour), Rudi Wulf (North Harbour), Conrad Smith (Wellington), Richard Kahui (Waikato), Ma’a Nonu (Wellington), Dan Carter (Canterbury), Stephen Donald (Waikato), Andy Ellis (Canterbury), Brendon Leonard (Waikato), Rodney So’oialo (Wellington), Sione Lauaki (Waikato), Richie McCaw (captain, Canterbury), Jerome Kaino (Auckland), Adam Thomson (Otago), Ali Williams (Tasman), Brad Thorn (Tasman), Anthony Boric (North Harbour), Greg Somerville (Canterbury), Neemia Tialata (Wellington), John Afoa (Auckland), Tony Woodcock (North Harbour), Andrew Hore (Taranaki) and Keven Mealamu (Auckland).

Jimmy Cowan (Southland) was also brought in to cover for the still-injured Leonard, and Johnny Schwalger (Wellington) is training with the group in case Woodcock’s foot takes longer than expected to heal.

New caps Wulf, Kahui, Donald, Thomson and Boric are all youngsters breathing fire this year, while Tuitavake has been very close for a few years… and downright unlucky during that time really, considering the success rate of the men that used to be selected ahead of him.

Proven performers held their place, and some who had been dropped before were recalled, like Brad Thorn, Ma’a Nonu, John Afoa and Jerome Kaino.

An extended training group convened before the Super 14 final revealed the others pushing closest to inclusion… in the second row Boric was preferred to Kevin O’Neill (Canterbury) and Tom Donnelly (Otago), while Daniel Braid’s (Auckland) claims were only ever strong enough to understudy McCaw, who was likely to start every game.

In the backs Lelia Masaga (Waikato) was kept out by Wulf, and Paul Williams (Canterbury) was only ever an option if Muliaina or MacDonald were injured.

There was no place in the wider group for Jerry Collins, Piri Weepu, Jason Eaton, Troy Flavell, Chris Masoe, Isaia Toeava or Nick Evans, for various reasons, and it will never be known how close Kieran Read, Wyatt Crockett, Stephen Brett and Casey Laulala came compared to the others because they are Crusaders and the training group excluded them out of necessity.

Read must have been the closest of those. Everyone had already assumed Collins’ replacement was the Crusader. Thomson’s game-breaking ability just got him the (surprise) nod.

Joe Rokocoko (Auckland) will have the luxury of a long recuperation if necessary, being openly recognised in the literature accompanying the announcement as one of their established world class assets. He may still be playing in the Tri Nations if his current rate of recovery is maintained.

I have been guilty in the past of graphically outlining expectations. I’m not going to in 2008. This year I will try to be satisfied with whatever the All Blacks are satisfied by.

They will win more than they lose, I’m pretty sure of that, but I’m becoming less inclined to let them carry me. I will travel the same emotional road as them, but my well-being will not be determined by the points they score.

I am going to sit back and enjoy watching them do what they do best, which is play positive rugby and to Hell with whether the other sixteen men on the field are playing in the same spirit.

It is also around about this time every year I deliver the standard lecture on complacency being a short cut to test defeat, but somehow I don’t think it’s necessary this time.

All those other times the Hurricanes had played well enough to meet the Crusaders in knockout, the resulting matches had gone with the southerners but the matches hadn’t necessarily been great spectacles. This time the rugby matched the occasion.

The visitors to AMI Stadium were first out of the blocks, wing Zac Guildford scoring after charging down a slow Dan Carter clearance, and for most of the first half as nothing more than penalties were traded the Hurricanes frustrated the home side. If the Hurricanes had gone to the half-time sheds leading 8-6 the Crusaders would have had every right to be furious with themselves.

They had camped for long periods in the Hurricanes’ half and were steadily gaining an edge at set piece, but their finishing of opportunities was not optimal and the Hurricanes seemed comfortable with the disjointed pace of play. Defence on both sides, meanwhile, was fierce and correct. It was going to take something pretty special to break through.

Finally a Hurricanes clearing kick lacked chasers, a return by the Crusaders was regathered, and the weight of pressure began to tell. Width here, pick-and-go there, width once more, a series of broken tackles and the Hurricanes backpedalling inside their own twenty-two again… a freekick with red jerseys swarming, almost competing with each other to be the ball-carrier… and the Hurricanes defence stretching too far, hanging on by the bootlaces, as the Crusaders finally hit the top gear they’ve threatened to find all year.

No longer surprising, that they save such performances for knockout games.

Side by side, Hurricanes forwards and backs desperately reformed into tackle lines with each phase, and the Crusaders kept hurtling into them. Three more times over the advantage line into the corner, all wonderful support play punctuated by the hard slapping of shoulders into ribcages, and each time with more and more tacklers committed as the line beckoned… then back into the middle for the coup de grace, which was fullback Leon MacDonald hitting the line at pace and wrong-footing number eight Chris Masoe under his posts.

It was a glorious end to forty brutal minutes.

Robbie Deans’ message to the Crusaders during the interval was simple. “Keep working,” he barked. Don’t expect these guys to crack easily, in other words, they’re up for it. The MacDonald try had been a perfect drill. Make second efforts, be cohesive and patient, be prepared to wait until late in the phase count for the crucial play.

And MacDonald scored another in exactly the same manner after the break, under the posts at the other end, this time not humiliating Masoe but both Hurricanes locks as he split them like an axe. Crash, recycle, stretch, recycle, crash… the Hurricanes’ tackling all the while drawing low whistles of appreciation… but the defensive line eventually snapping like an overwound string on a guitar.

This is when your self-preservation instinct needs to kick in against the Crusaders on their home turf, when they score a couple of crowd-pleasing fifteen man tries, effectively like ear-ringing shots from a boxer a weight division above you… they get that quick points look in their eye, and watch out.

Backs aren’t required.

Next siege of the Hurricanes line, a quick tap went right. Quick hands meant a shovelled pass went behind hooker Ti’i Paulo, but he turned and caught it, offloading to blindside flanker Kieran Read who was in better battering stance. With great leg drive and copybook low body position, Read carried two Hurricanes on his back over the line.

Other teams might have gone into their prescribed shells after such a classic game-winning sequence. Such lethal scores before and after half-time are almost always decisive, and in other situations I’ve seen winners either sit comfortably on their lead or go on to blow away a psychologically already-beaten opponent. No such apathy here from either side. The Hurricanes are one of the most dangerous long-range-scoring and come-from-behind sides in the competition’s history, and the Crusaders knew exactly what to expect.

A moment’s hesitation cost reserve five-eighth Stephen Brett a charge-down similar to Carter’s in the first half, and Hurricanes lock Jeremy Thrush dived over for a try. It was the third Hurricanes try in a row from charge-downs, counting Hosea Gear’s at Eden Park last week.

Thrush’s try had come in the seventy-sixth minute and meant the Crusaders were doubly determined to have the final say, but the Hurricanes had that too. Defending their own line again they broke clear, and a kick by Gear turned the defence into full-on attack. The desperate Crusaders’ clearance was returned stylishly by fullback Cory Jane, who left six tacklers flailing at his heels as play was brought to within a yard of the Crusaders’ line. Prop Neemia Tialata’s was about the fifth or sixth low drive for the chalk after that, and brought up the final scoreline of 33-22.

There was no way the Sydney semifinal that followed could compete with it, because that match only had one team prepared to play positively… the Waratahs. The momentum that the Sharks had built over the past few weeks as they finally found some try-scoring form was gone, and the niggly and jersey-pulling Sharks returned right on cue for knockout.

Perhaps flanker Epi Taione’s suspension for head-butting against the Hurricanes six weeks ago was a week too short. His return was a 2009 contract-losing performance. Everything he touched turned to s***. First five-eighth Ruan Pienaar had a similar shocker.

Sharks halfback Rory Kockett was worst offender in the foul play stakes, sneaking rabbit punches, throwing the ball at people and having generally too much to say for himself… too much even for a halfback.

Don’t play dirty in the Waratahs’ backyard… I thought most people knew this. Built on lawlessness, in Sydney they know a thing or two about fighting dirty. The smaller and louder you are, in fact, the harder big men will smack you. Kockett was the recipient of three or four tackles and clean-outs where flankers went on with the job and crushed him into the turf.

With their halves having bad nights and their loose forwards already out of sync, the Sharks were easily torn apart. Tries to wing Lote Tuqiri, centre Rob Horne, first five Kurtley Beale and halfback Luke Burgess had the Waratahs out to a 25-6 lead.

If Beale had been kicking even half his goals the home side would have been well clear, but a late try saw the Sharks pull back to 13-25. It only delayed the inevitable. The Waratahs were too well organised to let the game slip from their grasp. A final dropped goal to Beale saw New South Wales home with a 28-13 win.

That sets up a repeat of the Crusaders v Waratahs final from three years ago, won 35-25 by the Crusaders. Another Christchurch match between the teams, from round robin a few years before that, resulted in a record 96-19 hiding for the visitors. Next Saturday’s final is likely to more closely resemble the former, but the Crusaders are by no means guaranteed a win. The 2008 team are the best Waratahs yet, and no other team in Super 14 rates a better chance of upsetting the Crusaders.

If that happens… no, in fact, regardless of the outcome… the NSWRU should get ready to eat humble pie and reinstate the coach. The signing of Deans as Wallabies coach notwithstanding, the loss of Ewen McKenzie could be a near mortal one for Australian rugby right now.

The end of the match was exciting, with Hurricanes five-eighths Willie Ripia attempting three dropkicks, all of which could have won the game. But his team-mates couldn’t set him up close enough to the posts or with enough time to steady himself, and the three misses were no more than a mathematical irony considering how little the Hurricanes attempt scoring by that method.

Although close the Hurricanes were lucky to get even a bonus point for the loss, having been gifted most of their points with two tries in two minutes to Hosea Gear. He got the first after his backline had fumbled and somehow the seas parted for him, then his second immediately afterwards when Nick Evans fluffed the restart and was subsequently charged down.

The rest of the time the Blues were near flawless. Where did this sudden dose of intelligence come from? It wasn’t that pure hot-blooded enthusiasm for the underdog’s role which had gotten them their other two wins in this late run, it was smart, patient, downright austere rugby played in the right half of the field.

If they’d played this way when they should in 2008, they’d be hosting the other semi.

The following night the Crusaders went the other way intelligence-wise when they let the Highlanders do exactly what the Reds had done the week before, namely rattle them by any means possible… only this time with the Highlanders’ talent (not to mention their hunger, the bloodlust of the often-denied) meaning the result was ultimately unsalvageable.

The 26-14 victory meant plenty in the pride stakes to the eleventh-placed Highlanders. A prickly discomfort, meanwhile, accompanied any rationalisations about how little the loss meant to the Crusaders. Forget how far clear of the pack they were, this was an untidy performance on the eve of the semifinals, bringing memories of last year’s round 14 loss to the Chiefs flooding back.

The best performance of the weekend was by the Waratahs, who beat the Reds 18-11 in Brisbane to ensure hosting rights for a semifinal. They had to beat not only the fired-up Reds but also find a way to score points with the referee penalising the attacking team more often than not.

That’s a guess, which I have nothing other than my own anecdotal evidence to substantiate, but it seemed like he was sent out with a brief to kill the spectacle.

The Australian officials have hardly covered themselves in glory this year when it comes to enhancing the spectacle. With one semifinal between two New Zealand sides and the other featuring Australians versus South Africans, there is a mouthwatering possibility of not seeing an Australian referee again in the final fortnight.

The Sharks beat the Chiefs 47-25 in Durban to claim a semifinal place against the Waratahs in Sydney, but the game was a loose one with the home side being presented far too many easy points. We won’t dwell too long on that particular Australian referee… Stuart Dickinson was his usual unintelligible self, whose style was condusive to plenty of niggle and off-the-ball hijinks rather than free-running rugby, and you can judge for yourself who that benefited.

It didn’t matter after an hour or so. The Chiefs looked exhausted. Considering the ease with which they were allowed to score and the long upcoming flight to Sydney, this was hardly ideal semifinal preparation for the Sharks.

In other matches, the Force came back from 0-22 down to beat the Brumbies 29-22 in Perth, the Stormers held off the Lions 22-13 in Johannesburg and the Bulls thrashed the Cheetahs 60-20 in Bloemfontein, but the losses by the Crusaders and Hurricanes were the main discussion topics on Sunday.

They weren’t the only tight games of the competition that made me think twice about New Zealand rugby’s supposed health.

Two foreign sides who won in the final round will meet in one semifinal, and two New Zealand teams who lost will meet in the other. If I was spinning that into good news for New Zealand rugby, it wouldn’t be hard, but I’m not. If the teams with the most talent had won when they should have won, every game of the competition, then all four semifinalists would be from New Zealand.

The reason the Crusaders, Hurricanes, Blues and Chiefs are not the four semifinalists is because New Zealand rugby is low on intellectual capital. Take a look back at a list of crucial fixtures over the course of this season, the bad games (and I’ll leave the Highlanders’ early losing streak out of it) that team after team of New Zealanders contrived somehow to lose against sides with less talent.

Sharks 22 Blues 17
Chiefs 26 Stormers 35
Blues 17 Force 27
Hurricanes 13 Sharks 13
Highlanders 17 Sharks 19
Blues 11 Brumbies 16
Stormers 20 Hurricanes 12
Stormers 26 Highlanders 10
Force 22 Chiefs 21
Lions 33 Chiefs 27
Sharks 47 Chiefs 25

In all those matches… and you’re forgiven for not obsessing as I do and therefore maybe not remembering clearly the ones that don’t involve your team… what’s the common denominator? Agreed, there are a few there where the referee had a minor meltdown at some stage and also influenced the result, but mostly the common denominator is a team playing smart or even cunning rugby against a team who could or would not throttle back and think clearly in tight situations.

Okay, sure… and now I’m looking at the list again and I don’t see the Waratahs there. No, I’ll concede they deserve their semifinal place on the strength of their results against the other top teams.

Waratahs 20 Hurricanes 3
Waratahs 24 Brumbies 17
Waratahs 37 Blues 16
Force 12 Waratahs 17
Waratahs 25 Sharks 10
Stormers 13 Waratahs 13
Reds 11 Waratahs 18

Their defence was patient, resolute and largely unpunished. Their opportunities were taken and talent-wise, they’re not the poorest. Again, they won when they had to, with smart rugby.

The Stormers were rich in talent by South African standards. They often won while seeming to enjoy a referee’s favour, but then they also started the season with a few bum calls going against them in tight games and were edged out of fourth spot on points differential by the Hurricanes. Their fifth place finish at least reflects their ability to play to a pattern.

The Sharks, meanwhile, are there based almost solely on their ability to rattle the too-excitable teams.

The Hurricanes, on the other hand, appear to have scraped in based on their ability to keep scoring points once the easier games are decided.

Hurricanes 39 Chiefs 19
Brumbies 15 Hurricanes 33
Bulls 22 Hurricanes 50
Cheetahs 10 Hurricanes 38
Hurricanes 38 Lions 12

These were their flat-track bullying nights. The rest of the time it was dire stuff… losses to the Blues, Crusaders, Waratahs and Stormers, and a draw with the Sharks suggest they had problems with the tougher customers but no problem whatsoever with teams they could out-attitude. They and the Stormers had the same number of wins, losses, draws and bonus points. The points differential was all that separated them.

It worked in a New Zealand team’s favour in that instance, separating two teams that were otherwise equal, but in the case of the Blues it proved irrelevant. Where did points differential get the Blues? What did the big scores matter on the good nights, when on the bad nights they were losing games they should have won? Third on the points-scoring ledger to the Crusaders and Hurricanes, they wasted opportunities and their composure deserted them at vital junctures.

There is little argument about New Zealand having the largest talent pool and producing the highest number of exciting players to watch, but the 2008 Super 14 season shows clearly that winning tight games is not our strength.

The Crusaders seem to have that happy knack. When you dilute the Crusaders with other players to make the All Blacks, however, and those other players are of the exciting rather than the smart variety, it’s at least worth considering that the All Blacks might be collectively more talented than they are smart.

I don’t know… maybe I think about it too much. Maybe the All Blacks aren’t flat-track bullies, maybe they do historically win the ones that count and my perspective has been screwed up by the recent introduction of World Cups to the calendar. But I’m starting to see a pattern more and more clearly, where New Zealand teams win the easy ones but drop the ones that count and bitch about the officials afterwards.

I think it says something about our national character somehow, but if it’s good I’m damned if I can figure out what it is.

As a tragic, I often ascribe a wider meaning to rugby. Sometimes I even use rugby imagery to explain non-rugby events, I’ve got it so bad… but then that’s also because rugby is such a true contest that you can use it to put any competitive situation in context.

The US Presidential race going on right now is like a World Cup final. The Republicans have won the last two, but their awesome forward pack which functioned well at the set pieces is a little less convincing at second phase. The Democrats, meanwhile, came up with a clever game plan based around Hillary Clinton’s captaincy, mobile enough to diffuse the Republican war machine’s power up front.

Now we’ll see how it plays out. If the Democrats can keep beating them to the breakdown, maybe their quick black winger can score in the corner.

Then again, maybe not. Smart rugby is launched from a solid platform… and as the 2008 Super 14 has shown, is about winning the match not the early popularity contest.

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It wouldn’t be so bad but yesterday I got drunk enough to smoke cigarettes, cutting myself a little too much birthday slack, and today the god of nicotine was punishing me.

Some days are like that. I skipped lunch and scarfed down a whole fish just before midnight. It leaves me feeling hectic, septic and dyspeptic.

Kind of like I did after watching the Chiefs get their arses handed to them on a plate by the Lions 27-33 in Johannesburg, which was angrier but less emotionally involved. My man friday is a good fellow who never lets me down, and he’s a Chiefs fan no less… only five minutes before he heard I had been asking him if he needed a hug, teasing him mercilessly as I would expect him to tease me if my team had played like that… then his perspective was widened suddenly and significantly, just as my own was narrowing, and me doing little more than exporting my skull’s vindictive mood.

Right now his mother is fighting for her life in a Hamilton hospital, having been rushed to specialist care from some Bay of Plenty backwater, while his senior colleague, diddums, is late filing after some bad sashimi.

I felt awful.

So I’ll make this gesture at least on his behalf, and bag the Chiefs no more than necessary… which, seriously, should be not bagging them at all, unlike what I did last week.

The Chiefs played their hearts out all season. They beat the best and lost to the worst. They are a lovable but still bloodthirsty bunch of highway bandits one minute, playing the kind of heady, sublime rugby you remember for years, and Keystone Cops the next as their hare-brained, overambitious schemes come unstuck all at once.

So they didn’t make it. Neither did the Bulls, Highlanders, Reds, Force and Brumbies. They all had their moments… with the fans on their feet, howling at the moon, as one… they just ran into teams that beat them, that’s all, beat them on the day, in the everlasting and ever-varied fight over a leather ball we call rugby.

The, Lions and Cheetahs? Well… last week’s unforgiving, heartless sentiments, they’d be surplus to requirements. Non-viable organisms. On the same Dark Continent they still occupy, 20,000 years ago they would have been torn apart by predators whose bellies were already full, just for sport.

But by my own reasoning, the Lions and Cheetahs also had their moments. And if beating the Chiefs is the season highlight, you’d hope the Lions were at least AIMING higher. Not that the Cheetahs even managed that. A win over the Reds in Bloem was their only fond memory of 2008 so far. If they go on to beat last year’s defending champions on Saturday, and in doing so neatly punctuate the Bulls’ fall from grace, they will still have a long way to drag themselves before they can think about challenging one of the serious outfits.

But not many eyes will be turned to the Free State this weekend. Most South Africans will be looking to Johannesburg and Durban. The Stormers will travel up to Ellis Park to see if they can’t do what the Chiefs couldn’t, while the Chiefs will travel back down to Durban and try to redeem themselves by pulling the shades on the Sharks’ season.

Believe me, they can do it. We’ll find out what we need to know about the Sharks, that’s for sure. I hope any New Zealanders who ever bagged the Chiefs will be able to live with themselves, when in light of our semifinal hosting interests they find themselves cheering on the same team they were so recently bagging… screaming go the mighty Chiefs in Auckland and Wellington, if the Hurricanes or Blues need their help to qualify.

The Blues beat the Highlanders 40-15, and the Hurricanes beat the Force 21-10. Their match-up this Friday at Eden Park will set the tone for a hellish final round.

The Crusaders will have little trouble with the Highlanders, if they bother to field their strongest fifteen… and they won’t… but even their second fifteen can keep opposition in the kill zone long enough for Robbie Deans to empty a lethal All Black bench. That’s what they did in Brisbane against the Reds on Saturday, trailing by not much until the final quarter-hour, then unleashing Dan Carter, Ali Williams, Andy Ellis and Corey Flynn to score a flurry of late points and win 27-21.

Brisbane is a godforsaken city where strange things happen, but the Crusaders losing to the Reds would have been just too outlandish… even for a place that was created to give the word outlandish true meaning. When convicts were being allowed to develop a big enough breeding stock in the necessary isolation, I wouldn’t have liked to meet the Bris who that lot were the bane of.

The Waratahs drew 13-all with the Stormers in Cape Town yesterday, leaving themselves still needing a win to qualify, and they will go to Brisbane this weekend to try and secure a playoff spot. That will be a bloodbath worth taping. Border clashes between the Reds and Waratahs are legendary. The Brumbies and Force will fight it out in Perth, too. Expect a high body count.

My suggestion of a Trans Pacific Union last week earned a slew of South African requests to unsubscribe. I dutifully removed their addresses from the database, wondering if I would ever come to regret their departure.

And the same applies to the Super 14 competition… if we cut them loose and embarked on a new course, might we regret that decision?

Well sure, it’s possible, but a competition the fans are obviously rethinking shouldn’t be afraid of change. It should recognise the need for it, in fact. The business at hand being the final push for playoff spots is an exciting diversion, but in 2008 there seem to be a few more weighty outcomes in the balance.

Join me in a heartfelt prayer, dear reader, that the teams who deserve victory this coming weekend don’t have the results stolen from them by bad officiating, and that a good family gets to see its mother’s smile again.

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First the Crusaders dealt to the Sharks 18-10 in Christchurch, able to seal victory late in the game after losing Richie McCaw for ten minutes following a referee’s tantrum.

Failing to see many cynical off-the-ball infringements by AJ Venter and his niggly crew, usually because he was struggling to keep up, Stuart Dickinson binned McCaw for an athletic, split-second piece of timing.

The new law about immediate offside lines at the tackle came into effect, supposedly, but McCaw’s fetching style looked virtually flawless on replay, and certainly not worth a yellow card.

The Crusaders were unfazed and simply went into sudden death / Aussie ref mode. Considering you need the Crusaders to have a one-man handicap to make their games close these days anyway, and they always keep their nerve no matter what sort of strange official decisions are being made, their fans were still able to relax and enjoy watching the artists at work.

It took them until late in the second half before prop Wyatt Crockett toed the ball over the line and fell on it, but when he did it was to consign the Sharks to their third straight loss and an ignominious but overdue exit from the top four.

Then the Blues proved they are still genuinely in the hunt by beating the Reds 35-22 in Brisbane. All their recent disciplinary problems were bubbling under the surface instead of erupting for once… maybe it helped that their unruly captain Troy Flavell only lasted less than an hour, and that the field of play was left to the less hot-headed at the death, when tempers are usually shortest.

In a game of less significance where the playoffs are concerned, but an entertaining one nevertheless, the Highlanders were reduced to thirteen men for ten minutes in the second half but still held off the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein to win 31-28.

They might have won more handily had it not been for those sin-binnings, dropped passes with the line in sight and the unfortunate collision that knocked out their giant tighthead prop Clint Newland… but for a team that had lost the winning habit this was a pretty gutsy performance. Nothing new there, all their performances this year have been gutsy, but this was a rare win, and away from home no less against a team of bigger men.

The most remarkable performance was on the blindside flank by Adam Thomson, an established star in seven-a-side rugby and one who may yet enjoy higher honours in the fifteen-man code.

In that crucial second half period where thirteen Highlanders were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, he galvanised his tired team-mates several times with sublime skills.

His try was one of the year’s best. Stealing possession in his own half, he surged forty yards before the cover converged. Backhanding a pass to his support man as he was tackled, he still had enough breath to regain his feet and take the return pass for a magnificent score in the corner.

The Saturday games all had deep play-off meaning. The Hurricanes jumped into third place with a 38-12 pasting of the Lions in Wellington. Leading 26-7 at half-time, their second half performance wasn’t quite as slick as the first but they did more than enough to announce themselves as genuine threats for the title if the Crusaders drop their standards.

Andrew Hore has been showing them the way up front, and is so far ahead of the other All Black hooking candidates that he wouldn’t make a bad replacement as captain if Richie McCaw was ever unavailable.

The Chiefs then soured all the New Zealand sides’ good work over the weekend, blowing the first potential Kiwi clean sweep of the year with a truly horrid match in Perth. The Force deserved the 22-21 victory for keeping their heads in a situation where it seemed fifteen inmates had taken over the asylum. They took their chances, gratefully accepting every free gift the Chiefs handed them.

The Chiefs, meanwhile, proved that no matter how hot they can get with their tails up they will NEVER seriously compete for a Super 14 title. They cannot remain calm under any sort of pressure. They had at least ten opportunities to win this game and blew every one. When they weren’t shelling passes and kicking into charging players hands, they were missing shots from directly in front, refusing opportunities for points and losing the ball over the line.

Even when they finally took a 21-18 lead with a drop-kick, they blew it a minute later with a brainless offside, giving the Force an easy penalty which Matt Giteau slotted.

The Chiefs simply don’t know how to play with the lead. No matter what game situation, they start throwing it around like a hot potato as soon as things get exciting and the crowd volume rises. Fifty times at least, a man should have gone to deck and secured possession, but failed to do so because his adrenal gland was pumping pure stupid juice.

A couple of years back, I would have been smashing inanimate objects watching such a game. Nowadays I have simply learned to watch it and laugh in the same way I watch Buster Keaton movies.

After that came the Bulls tipping over the Waratahs 16-13 in Pretoria, and the Stormers ending the Brumbies hopes with a 20-10 win in Cape Town. It leaves the Waratahs holding second place on 37 by a single point from the Hurricanes, with the Stormers in fourth a further point back. Then come the Chiefs on 33, the Sharks on 32 and the Blues on 31.

It seems last week’s suggestion by Inky for a competition that ditches the South African teams struck a chord… I’d better elaborate.

It’s been pretty obvious in recent years that the Super Rugby expansion to 14 was an unpopular one. It worked in Perth, but how the South Africans managed to justify a fifth team is beyond me. If anything, they should have been reduced to three teams.

Sure, every year one South African franchise plays well… and in 2007, when we handed them the competition, two did… but they don’t typically play an attractive style, internally they’re a mess, and they’re always dangling in front of New Zealand and Australia the threat of splitting to play a different competition with the Europeans in their time zone.

The cultural differences aren’t just language-based. Those are just subtleties… like, if you hyphenated Orange Free State it would be a state without oranges. They just seem to think differently.

They would LOVE the Heineken Cup style of play. Let them start their new competition and good luck to them.

We could respond with a Trans-Pacific Union… the TPU, or TransPac if you needed an abbreviation. Everyone’s been talking about a competition that the Pacific Islanders and Argentina could play in, so why not create one?

Two Argentine teams (one from Buenos Aires and the other from the rural sub-unions) and one each from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga could replace the African teams overnight.

I’d watch.

Where would the money come from? Who cares? Are all the fish-heads too lazy to start new business relationships?

If so, THEY are the real problem.

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The Blues on paper look like a team that would trouble anyone, and in the last couple of months it has sometimes been downright weird watching them steadily unravel in situations they should be mastering.

Against the competition leaders, however, they at least played some of their famous old brand of rugby.

Richie McCaw opened the try-scoring with a crowd-pleasing move down the right, with number eight Mose Tuiali’i stretching the Blues defence and fullback Leon MacDonald linking, looking inside him for the big flanker in support. This was going to be some game if the first try was anything to go by.

Wing Rudi Wulf and number eight Nick Williams scored tries for the Blues to keep the match close, and the visitors were denied two further tries by television replays.

Crusaders hooker Corey Flynn had a bizarre match. Two tries put him in credit in the final analysis, but a blatant obstruction in the first half on Blues wing David Smith followed by a yellow card in the second for a high tackle on the same player were black marks against an experienced player who should know better.

The tension getting to the host side a little is the only explanation that makes sense. Publicly they had talked up their opposition all week, and they’d genuinely not expected anything other than the Blues at their best, but it still seemed to rattle them.

Controversy surrounded Flynn’s hooking replacement, too. A replay of Ti’i Paulo’s foot hitting the touchline was inadmissible as evidence and could not prevent a try being unfairly awarded along with a bonus point. The officials were feeling the pressure just as keenly as the players.

David Smith scored a late try to close the gap to 26-22 and at least reward the Blues with a close-loss bonus point of their own. This was perhaps a lucky escape for the Crusaders though, and just the latest in a series of painful losses for the Blues.

The other Friday game saw the Brumbies beat the Lions 28-21, after trailing 13-21 with not long remaining. The Brumbies’ slim playoff hopes are still alive, but this might just as easily have been a horrible embarrassment for the home side in Canberra, losing to the worst Super Rugby franchise in many years.

When we inevitably ditch the South Africans and let them carry out their threat of creating a joint African-European competition, the Lions will not be the proudest Super 14 chapter to be closed. If we replaced the South African unions with Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Argentina Town and Argentina Country, any memories of the Lions’ stodgy brand of rugby would not cause undue regret.

This was as close as they've come to entertaining rugby in quite a while.

Saturday saw four games in sequence, starting in Hamilton with the Chiefs hosting the Reds. Before heading overseas on an itinerary that takes them through Perth, Johannesburg and Durban, the Chiefs needed a big win to maintain the traction they’d already generated this month.

They hit the ground running with a Stephen Donald try, a catch-and-regather that is fast becoming Donald’s trademark. Next, wing sensation Lelia Masaga scored a couple to make their half-time lead intimidating. After galloping clear on the right wing for his first, put into space neatly out wide by centre Richard Kahui, Masaga then chased down a kick by Donald and grounded it within an inch of touch-in-goal.

After the break the Reds chased down their lead and made the game close. Morgan Turinui and Digby Ioane, both poached from other Australian franchises, scored three tries between them and kept the result in the balance. But the Chiefs’ finest moment was to come, with the sort of try that only teams with serious momentum tend to score.

With the Reds looking to score again and really throw the cat among the pigeons, number eight Sione Lauaki intercepted outrageously on halfway and pinned his ears back. The crowd were instantly on their feet, roaring loud enough to be heard in Raglan.

The Reds fullback cut the giant down with five yards still to go, but Lauaki placed the ball and regained his feet legally. Picking up the ball again and now trampling the first tackler underfoot, a second tackler dived on him and dragged him down, but with colossal strength he twisted and thrust out an arm to score.

The Reds played a significant part in a fine spectacle, but the Chiefs have some fairly convincing mojo right now and carried the night. Their self confidence lets them cut loose instantaneously when opportunities arise. They could theoretically make a playoff berth safe before even arriving in Durban, which might be advisable considering their history of ultimate disappointment (and considering the Sharks’ history, some kind of perpetual karmic dispensation noticed by no one except yours truly).

Nothing this weekend made me happier than the Waratahs beating the Sharks 25-10 in Sydney. I’ve been waiting for the Sharks to slip up in this fashion.

When all the other teams were adjusting to the new laws, the Sharks didn’t bother. Why should they? The new laws didn’t change the amount of niggle possible, and didn’t increase punishments for jersey-pulling or all the other cunning little obstructions the Sharks build their game around. Amidst all the mayhem and confusion over the new laws, in fact, there was even more scope for their negative tactics to prosper.

Then the other teams finally started to exploit the positive opportunities allowed under the new charter, and the Sharks began to falter. The Waratahs are the second team to show them up in succession, and that being after a couple of very lucky previous escapes. The Sharks now move to Christchurch, where Robbie Deans and the Crusaders will be waiting, knowing exactly what to expect from their visitors.

After midnight came the Hurricanes’ six-try 38-10 thrashing of the Cheetahs in Kimberley. This was, quite simply, magnificent, and a timely blow for New Zealand’s hopes.

It was no pushover. The contest was willing, in blazing high altitude heat on a rock-hard track. The Cheetahs aren’t as bad as their place on the table suggests, and they have been trying to give the ball width all season. Trouble is, it’s not second nature yet, the Free Staters are so new to the full-on-attack way of thinking that they can find themselves in situations they have very little control over… big forwards being just as potent a threat as backs is something they’re still surprised by.

Jason Eaton, Rodney So’oialo and Scott Waldrom all scored tries that left the Cheetahs with hands on hips looking at each other. The score was mounting via five-pointers, with loose forwards dotting down untouched, and the Cheetahs looked completely nonplussed. Backs Ma’a Nonu, Zack Guilford and Cory Jane, meanwhile, perplexed them in ways they looked far more comfortable with.

The beefy Africans seem out of place in the new environment. For their loyal supporters, it must be quite painful, like watching 50 Cent trying to act.

The weekend finished with the expected bummer, the Stormers beating the Highlanders 26-16 in Cape Town. The Highlanders were their own worst enemies again, losing men to the sin bin while trailing too many points already, then shipping more points playing catch-up.

The Bulls and Force had byes.

I believe 39 competition points will be the minimum required for a semifinal place this year, and with three rounds remaining the Blues, Brumbies and Force are already in the position of needing other teams to finish very badly for them to have any hope.

My focus will be on whether or not the Hurricanes and Chiefs can both make the top four alongside the Crusaders. The Stormers and Waratahs look most likely to prevent there being three New Zealand teams in the semifinals.

The Sharks are in trouble. They will revert to type as usual in May. They’re pretty good rugby players when they concentrate on the game, but their circuitry isn’t geared for doing that in pressure situations. In pressure situations they will start fights and get binned, and when they drop out of the top four they won’t get back in.

In cinema they often make movies from successful novels, and the process is reversible. After a really successful movie from an original screenplay, they sometimes release a “novelisation”.

This World Cup report is like a novelisation of a horror movie.

Why we lost is obvious. Why we reappointed the coaches is less so, but it’s not my concern, seeing as they have my unqualified support no matter who they are.

Since the review has been released though, and while the sharks are circling elsewhere, it’s time for Inky to confront some other issues.

Rugby is a sport for smart people. That’s always been true. Dummies don’t play it so well.

Unfortunately though, they still play it.

Are we asking too much of the modern player, with constant law changes and various other professional pressures, or are our players just getting dumber?

Okay… do we all know what we’re talking about here? If not, welcome to any new subscribers joining our broadcast tonight. Download an Inky for Dummies pamphlet at ssshh while I keep talking dot com.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up… I overheard a couple of old coozers recently bemoaning the current dumbing down of the game, and they were liberally salting the discussion with fairly juicy racial epithets. I was astounded when one mentioned he was a SKY shareholder.

We’ll get to that in a minute.

It seems the time might be just right to attempt (mentioning things like SKY and this falling intellectual capital in passing) to put all the major issues facing our game together into the same argument. Hell, why not… as an intellectual exercise… see if we can’t find some kind of better understanding, eh?

Two of the most important problems are the ones we all face as a sport, not just those the All Blacks or their supporters face as New Zealanders. They are 1. the new laws / the continuing beauty of the spectacle, and 2. the disparity in pay between northern and southern employers / the advent of the transition to professionalism in general.

No problem (SKY subscribers, I’ll be particularly interested in your responses this week).

Televising the game brings with it a big responsibility. Only ever ten percent (at most) of those watching the game are actually there at the ground. The rest of us are watching it on screen. Seeing what’s happening via slow motion and different angles is a huge advantage.

Rugby is better seen on television. Everyone knows it, and just attends the home ground whenever possible because that’s what you do when your team’s playing.

I watch Rugby Channel, the world’s only, to keep abreast. Indeed, I have associates working at various levels on several shows at the station. Some of them occasionally travel to three games a weekend in peak season. They catch up with the best local journalists and stay right up to date.

They, and the best of the written journos, know their rugby.

Understanding rugby may be our job, but understanding as an observer is very different from understanding as a player. Physically demonstrating your rights, skilfully and legally, with others set directly in opposition in an area where several hundred kilograms of rugby are colliding, is the hardest work there is and no stage for expressing bookish sentiments. Your whole world is the six foot circle in front of your face, where you can smell last night’s antelope on Schalk Burger’s breath.

The criticisms levelled at players, broadcast live during their performances, are a big burden. Players watch replays. When, after giving their guts, they hear broadcasters questioning their comprehension they try not to take it too hard.

One close associate is a commentator. He’s very aware of not bagging anyone unless it’s actually Beavis-dumb. Garden variety dumb, ten times a game, he’s far more charitable towards, and noticeably more so than the other commentators. He sees it and is constantly having to restrain himself. He bottles it, bottles it, bottles it, waiting until someone does something REALLY worthy of scorn, then calls it an “outbreak of stupidity”.

Recently we have been discussing whether the new laws and various other pressures have made it harder, or whether the players are, on average, less intelligent than they used to be. We came to the conclusion that it’s a little of both, with the latter exacerbating the former.

With certain exceptions, modern international class rugby players are no longer doctors, lawyers, builders, vets, plumbers and farmers. What they have to say for themselves outside the playing environment is less relevant academically these days… unless you’re writing your thesis on skeleto-muscular stress, or the Collins Equation for halting bodies in motion…

me = wrench knee squared

Most of them, though, are poets with the ball in hand, striving to win games on our behalves. Any lack of intellectual suitability for the fray is usually forgiven.

Outbreaks of stupidity? That’s different… see you later, there are others waiting in line for their chance.

It’s the right balance. The players are not to blame (and, of course, it’s worth mentioning that the gene for athletic, six foot six, high IQ and well adjusted is a rare one to begin with).

Neither are the new laws to blame. They are going to need tweaking over several years. They will need to lose a few of the new proposals, and maybe even add a few other new ones. The process will be ongoing, and globally as a sport we’re hardly looking like we’re heading for some kind of giant schism.

But if the northern hemisphere clubs keep snapping up our players, and those they pay most money for are the smartest ones, then sooner or later we’re going to reach a critical mass.

So… we trial new laws, while slowly the ones best equipped to do so get taken out of our playing pool? Something’s wrong there, and it isn’t the new laws.

New laws might actually be necessary, in a strange way. Requiring new players to be smarter by definition may mean that the replacements we find for our poached players, while younger and not yet physically equal, are at least smarter by way of consolation.

I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy.

PPV Rugby is a cathedral for me. My only beef is that it occasionally has to include ads for the moronic programs on its sister channels between games.

The boys in head office at SKY know that their sports channels (plus Food Channel, not surprisingly) are carrying the others… and there’s a growing demographic, the Undiscerning Dumb, who apparently want to watch an endless supply of such guff.

But here’s my message loud and clear to any SKY shareholders out there. I don’t CARE what’s on your feeble other channels, that’s why I leave the frequency tuned to Rugby in the first place… keep Wrestlemania and the soft porn for yuppies off it.

Don’t tell me our players are getting dumber. Unless there’s something about Hulk Hogan I don’t know, so is your television company.

Chiefs 18-5 Crusaders
Reds 29-12 Force
Waratahs 26-3 Lions
Brumbies 27-21 Sharks
Bulls 47-17 Highlanders
Stormers 20-12 Hurricanes

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Leaders the Crusaders came off their bye with a sound thrashing of the Lions 31-6 in Christchurch, and the Stormers jumped into top four contention with a 34-22 win over the Cheetahs in Cape Town.

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The Stormers allowed the Cheetahs a three-try second half fightback, while the Crusaders waited until the second half to really get going. This was consistent with the Crusaders’ winning pattern, a ruthlessness in what they call “the championship minutes”, and also typical of the Stormers who have struggled to put teams away all year.

The Blues coughed up another hairball on New Zealand’s rug, losing 11-16 to the Brumbies on Eden Park. This confirmed the suspicions of those who had watched the Blues have some very squeaky results almost fall into their lap this year, and concluded that their table position was as high as it was likely to get. But against the Brumbies, a team that the Chiefs had walloped in Canberra only a week ago? Not many picked the downhill slide to begin with this week’s fixture.

It was a self-inflicted litany of handling errors committed and penalties conceded once again for the three-time former champions. The backs were forced into a game of catch-up rugby by the untidy pack in front of them. Passes were pushed, and as usual possession was not guarded as jealously as it should have been. The Brumbies accepted the free ball on offer and began to look quite fluid towards the end of the match.

The Chiefs’ 42-28 Canberra result may now be better assessed in context.

The Chiefs had their bye and watched four teams leap-frog them, the Hurricanes to third, Waratahs to fourth, Force to sixth and Stormers to seventh. They now face the Crusaders and Reds in Hamilton before a road trip through Perth, Johannesburg and Durban takes them to the end of round robin. If the form they showed in Canberra holds they will be a handful for anyone, even the Crusaders, but this was a bad week to have the enforced break seeing as their momentum had been building so well.

The Highlanders lost 17-19 to the Sharks on Friday at Carisbrook, leaving all Southern lovers of rugby forlorn and all those who think the Sharks are over-rated gnashing their teeth once again.

The home side had chances to steal the victory, leading 17-11 at half-time but playing out a scoreless second half and watching late (easy) shots at goal sail wide. The losing habit is hard to break.

The Sharks for their part were unimpressive. This was a game lost by the Highlanders more than it was a winning performance from their South African visitors. Their high position on the table is about to come under real pressure. They play matches in Canberra, Sydney and Christchurch before returning to face the Cheetahs and Chiefs in Durban.

It would have been a pretty dismal weekend for New Zealand if the Hurricanes hadn’t pulled one of their occasional rabbits out of the hat and bamboozled the Bulls in Pretoria.

Right from the opening whistle they put on a sparkling exhibition of modern rugby. The pace of play left their hosts gasping and the Loftus Versfeld crowd a little confused. The crowd began in typical high veldt fashion, hurling a torrent of abuse and vegetable matter at the visiting team by way of welcome, but ended up screaming twice as loudly at their own team and leaving in droves with ten minutes remaining, after the Hurricanes’ seven-try display exposed an obvious lack of defensive commitment.

The Hurricanes at one stage were reduced to thirteen men after some cunning professional fouls, and this began a brief period where the Bulls nearly clawed their way back into the match, but the game ended as it began with the athletic New Zealanders running the stolid Africans off their feet.

It put the Hurricanes into third place. Next week they face the Stormers in Cape Town, a match that will certainly have a significant bearing on the play-off race but is mainly just a humdinger to look forward to. After that they have the Cheetahs in Kimberley, two matches at home against the Lions and Force, then finish at Eden Park against the Blues in a game that may very well eliminate either or both teams from semifinal contention.

The best match for drama this weekend was a 17-12 thriller won by the Waratahs in Perth. With Matt Giteau knocked unconscious early and a hastily rearranged backline making do without him, the Force were far less potent on attack than they normally are. The Waratahs closed them down with a dogged eighty-minute tackling drill, and scored tries in two of their rare periods on attack inside the Force’s twenty-two.

The match clock appeared broken, stalled on 78:47 for a few desperate phases, and with a string of penalties against the Waratahs keeping the frantic crowd on the edge of their seats, play continued for three or four minutes after the hooter sounded.

If the Waratahs end up making the semifinals, or even being the other team in Christchurch for the final, they will look back on these last two weeks’ results as crucial. Under huge pressure off the field and facing two handy teams on it, they have come up with the sort of character-building wins that coaches mould very good sides from.

Ewen McKenzie is in Paris as I write this, talking to Stade Francais about a possible position as their head coach. Any discussions about his salary will not have been harmed by his team’s gutsy displays in the last fortnight.

The Waratahs finish with the Lions and Sharks in Sydney, then the Bulls, Stormers and Reds on the road… not the worst draw, and on current form they wouldn’t be a bad bet for holding their top four spot.

It was a reaction to baggings the referees were already receiving live on air from certain former All Blacks in the commentary booth, baggings which I saw as a terrible influence on the young players watching.

Why should we expect youngsters to respect authority if former All Blacks don’t?

The rulebook states clearly that the referee is the sole judge of fact. Right or wrong, therefore, he is right. Shut up and get back ten. This is the attitude we need to cultivate in our young players. The day we start mobbing the officials like soccer players, and chasing them up and down the sidelines whenever they rule against us, is the day I stop watching.

How good we can expect our referees to be, however, is a separate issue. While I still believe the correct response from players on the field is to live with the decisions without complaining, off-field debate is unavoidable.

On Saturday night we saw a horrendous refereeing performance cost the Hurricanes two competition points, and a referee (Paul Marks of Australia) who seemed to be laughing at his own joke as he sabotaged the outcome with impunity.

The search for interesting narratives in an environment sometimes bereft of them drives the media to examine such incidents very closely. Then comes the inevitable institutional backlash. You know how it goes.

It seems that those in charge of refereeing appointments get their knickers in a righteously-indignant twist whenever their underlings mess up, but they can expect more of the same until they start appointing men who can stand the pressure of volatile situations.

The officiating structure will have to change if they don’t. The replay facilities already in use will need to become compulsory for all scoring plays if power-happy officials cannot stop rushes of adrenaline clouding their judgement at crucial moments.

Some have suggested two referees, or even in-goal touch judges, while others have touted a challenge system similar to the one used in tennis and gridiron, but all these suggestions bring a whole new set of unquantifiables to the table. Stricter guidelines for use of the TMO will be the only way around the problem unless referees either become unerringly diligent or collectively somehow do the impossible and become emotionless.

The game was certainly dramatic, and for theatrical value was worth the admission price if not an R rating. Two ugly incidents provided plenty of feeling as the game smashed its way to a 13-13 stalemate. First Neemia Tialata of the Hurricanes was yellow-carded for a clumsy piece of obstruction and then Sharks replacement Epi Taione disgraced himself with a blatant head-butt and was sent off.

The mood was testy, but the fierce contest at every tackle was riveting.

Some rugby matches get tedious when played by two unimaginative sides. I saw some Heineken Cup quarterfinals over the weekend, and I swear one of the commentators had to wander down to the sideline to wake up one of the cameramen.

Not so in Super 14, typically, and this game in particular. You could have cut the air with a knife.

The referee was beginning to feel the pressure as he awarded a penalty try against the Hurricanes for collapsing a maul that hadn’t actually collapsed, and later when he failed to see the Sharks defensive line offside as a professional foul he appeared to be losing his grip on the match. But his decision in the final seconds of the match, when he failed to consult the television match official as the Hurricanes appeared to score the winning try, was beyond the merely bizarre.

Centre Conrad Smith had clearly been tackled early running in support of the ball-carrier, and with the tryline only spitting distance away a strong argument could have been made for a penalty try. It should at least have been a penalty. To make matters worse, the ball bounced off a Sharks player into the in-goal, where Thomas Waldrom dived on it for what may very well have been a try.

Instead of judging the complicated situation worthy of another look, Marks simply blew for full-time.

The crowd went septic, at which point I relaxed and couldn’t help but smile at the pictures of murderous looking fans in yellow jerseys. And with what I’m about to write, we’ll see if any of them have any sense of humour left after the constant desensitisation they suffer living and working in Helengrad.

Hurricanes supporters over the years have put themselves in the perpetually aggrieved category with constant one-eyed gripes about decisions that mysteriously go against them. They fail to see their beloved team as regular lawbreakers, a tag that much impartial evidence supports.

Two of the former All Blacks I referred to earlier, the two who bag referees most often, in fact… you guessed it, Wellingtonians.

Admittedly, this was different. Marks’ howler had clearly robbed them of what would have been an almost heroic victory, and the last-minute nature of his decision meant a (deservedly for once) hot-blooded reception from the Wellington crowd.

Often the bad decisions of referees will even out over eighty minutes, but all three of the decisions mentioned above went against the Hurricanes.

It will be a shame if those in charge of refereeing appointments have nothing to respond with by way of solving the current situation, and can only avoid unnecessary pressure by scheduling Marks for games elsewhere. So be it. This will go into the long Hurricanes lexicon of grievances anyway, and consolidate the Wellington rugby supporters’ collective position as this country’s most vehemently anti-establishment… which is ironic, considering Wellington is where the NZRU has its offices… and where Nanny State also has Her throne, from which these days She hands down Her politically correct edicts telling us all how to think.

Still, it was unfortunate that a weekend which had started so well got derailed. The Highlanders had ground out their first win of the season, a 29-20 result against the Lions of South Africa at Carisbrook. It was untidy, but Southlander Jimmy Cowan had celebrated his fiftieth game with a great performance, putting himself right back into contention this year for the All Blacks halfback jersey.

Then the Chiefs further lightened the mood with a 42-28 victory over the Brumbies in Canberra. The Chiefs inside backs showed more cohesion than they have for a couple of seasons, playing with close understanding and very few errors. First five Stephen Donald in particular had a good night, his steady hand giving Callum Bruce and Richard Kahui in the centres a good foil to run off. Being hit on the chest frequently with passes to run onto, outside backs like Mils Muliaina, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Lelia Masaga and Viliame Waqaseduadua made hay.

Once the Hurricanes result had left a sour taste in the mouth, though, things only got worse for New Zealand fans. The Blues were in Sydney straight afterwards, and the Waratahs were breathing fire. Their coach’s contract had been ungraciously and indiscreetly shortened only days before, and they were looking to make a point on the field.

Ewen McKenzie is already the Waratahs’ most successful coach in the professional era. He could, in fact, still be even if they lost all their remaining games in 2008. His trial by media was a very thinly disguised hatchet job, although the motives are still unclear. Maybe some of the NSWRU beards can’t forgive the fact that McKenzie once propped for the Brumbies, I don’t know, but the blades were unsheathed weeks ago and stayed out until the deal was done. Of the collected Australian press, only the great Spiro Zavos found space in his column to note McKenzie’s winning record… and he’s a New Zealander.

With the odd loss, and their team’s wins becoming increasingly shaky lately, Blues fans might have seen this awful 16-37 loss coming. Pride is something the Waratahs aren’t short of, and pride is a powerful motivation once dented. The Waratahs didn’t need every bounce of the ball to go their way, and they didn’t even need the high number of Blues errors. They played positively, were far more aggressive at the collision area, and looked to lay a platform before releasing their outsides. Their set pieces were precise, almost rhythmical, and their kicking was accurate.

It was pretty simple rugby, far too simple really for the Blues to fall apart in the face of as easily as they did. That’s what happens, however, when one side’s confidence is fractured and the other side finds its character through adversity.

With the Crusaders having their bye, two wins and a draw out of four matches is probably a good result for New Zealand teams. The Force were a bit lucky to beat the Bulls 15-14 in Perth, and the Cheetahs beat the Reds 29-14 in Bloemfontein.

No-one put in a performance to suggest they can foot it with the Crusaders come play-off time, that’s for sure.

No matter how badly I felt cheated after such losses, I would always rather take it on the chin and not whine about it than run the risk of arrogance.

If, however, it’s arrogant to suggest that two New Zealand Super 14 teams playing each other with a New Zealand referee represents an entertainment pinnacle in rugby, then I’m guilty.

I love test matches for different reasons… that’s tribalism at its best, fifteen countrymen versus sixteen foreigners, but two teams packed with All Blacks playing each other is different.

My many years covering provincial rugby as impartially as possible means I identify with them all on certain levels, so with New Zealand derbies in Super 14 I can just sit back and enjoy the kung fu.

I guess the same thing works in reverse for the Heineken Cup.

With twice the usual number of Brits playing, the rugby gets twice as boring, which is why they need to poach so many New Zealanders… even the ones who are past it (it’s like what Carmen said to Fast Eddie in The Colour of Money, “if you’re too old to cut the mustard, you can always lick the john”).

The Super 14 is supposed to be an exciting brand of rugby, but you still have to wade through Transvaalers and Queenslanders to reach the good bits. When you’ve finished wading, though, you arrive at fixtures like the one which began round seven on Friday night, a full bore classic between the Hurricanes and Crusaders.

This began fast and only got faster, with no quarter given. Referee Steve Walsh is about the only referee quick enough to keep abreast of the torrid pace and still have oxygen spare to make sensible rulings, and even he was struggling at times.

But an interesting dynamic emerged. The Hurricanes and Crusaders, two of the competition’s most skillful teams, displayed a clever understanding of the current state of play.

While the new laws punish breakdown infringements only slightly more leniently than before, teams will sometimes perceive that the referee is also in a lenient mood.

If they back themselves defensively they will be prepared to give away a lot freekicks to maintain territorial advantage if they can’t actually steal possession.

Crusaders captain Richie McCaw is a past master at this, and if Walsh had been in a more pedantic mood he could have binned the flanker early in the match for repeatedly slowing down Hurricanes ball.

He didn’t, and McCaw trod a fine line all match.

Hooker Corey Flynn burrowed over to begin the Crusaders scoring just two minutes into the match, and number eight Mose Tuiali’i put a kick through the Hurricanes defence for the Crusaders’ second try. Rodney So’oialo was the only Hurricane covering, and the cruel bounce left him grabbing air as lock Ali Williams scored.

So’oialo had words with his team-mates under the posts as Dan Carter slotted the conversion. More commitment was needed. The Hurricanes had failed to score with the bulk of possession, whereas the Crusaders could turn their defence into attack more quickly than the home team could adjust.

The score was 20-3, with Jerry Collins lucky not to be yellow-carded for a high tackle, before So’oialo’s exhortation to his troops sank in.

When it did, the change in the Hurricanes was obvious. They played more conservatively, and the next half hour’s rugby was as good a blueprint for how to outscore the Crusaders as anyone is ever likely to come up with. Swarm the pill, support the ball carrier, and mark up on the blind in case there’s a turnover.

The worm slowly turned. The Hurricanes maintained their pressure, and camped for long periods in the Crusaders’ danger zone.

Andrew Hore smashed over but was called back because a Crusader tackler had been impeded. They kept the squeeze on, however, and it wasn’t long before Tuiali’i was given the card that McCaw had escaped earlier. Hore smashed over again, and this time wasn’t called back.

At 20-13 the match was in the balance. If the Crusaders didn’t have their wits about them they might have found the Hurricanes surge irresistible, but they’ve seen late-game charges before, and in many situations including sudden death. Holding on to a seven-point lead in Wellington? No problem.

Whereas until this point they had been prepared to cunningly infringe and drive up the penalty count, now they simply went into hardcore tackling mode, backing themselves to shut down one of the competition’s most lethal attacking sides with water-tight fifteen-man defence.

The last few minutes was defensive perfection as they folded the Hurricanes backwards onto their own line.

At risk of losing the one bonus point they had already earned when the hooter sounded, replacement Hurricanes halfback Alby Mathewson kicked the ball dead from his own goal line instead of desperately trying one last time for a length-of-the-field miracle… a smart move, probably.

Another New Zealand derby was scheduled for the following evening, in Hamilton where the Chiefs were hosting the Highlanders. For some reason this fixture was awarded an Australian referee, Stuart Dickinson no less, but even he couldn’t prevent the free-spirited try-fest that unfolded.

Both teams scored bonus points, lock Hoani MacDonald scoring two tries for the Highlanders and Chiefs wing Lelia Masaga lighting up the park with two more of the scorching variety he’s quickly becoming famous for.

The breakdowns weren’t as congested as the previous evening’s match, but the Hurricanes-Crusaders contest featured five All Blacks out of six loose forwards, with top four positions on the line.

The Chiefs and Highlanders were more intent on creating some kind of momentum with which to finish their seasons, so they played with far more abandon.

The drop in intensity was as obvious as the drop in defensive skills. Both coaches expected their loosies to contest at the tackle, but with more tackles being missed there were scoring opportunities all over the place for swift backs inclined to counter-attack.

The vicious contest for possession in the Crusaders-Hurricanes match had resulted in many breakdown stalemates, for which the new punishment is a freekick (balanced by a chance for the offending side to reform defensively).

In the Chiefs-Highlanders match, actual turnovers were effected more frequently at the less congested tackle areas. It made for a fascinating contrast.

To conclude that more missed tackles make for higher scoring matches is no intuitive stretch. Nor would it tax the cognitive powers of any but the most optimistic Highlanders fan to conclude that the Chiefs with their strike power across the park would prevail in such an open game.

The Highlanders’ star winger Fetu Vainikolo scored a beauty, and the Highlanders were briefly within range, but they were swimming against the tide with their inability to hold onto possession.

The Chiefs put them away 39-24. Flanker Liam Messam, halfback Brendon Leonard, first five Stephen Donald and fullback Mils Muliaina all joined Masaga on the scoreboard with fine running tries, confining the Highlanders to bottom of the table with their sixth straight loss.

The Blues took on the Bulls at Eden Park immediately afterwards. This was supposed to be a cake-walk for the Blues, with their visitors already in the middle of a long losing streak.

But somewhere in between an untidy Blues lineout and the Bulls being prepared to concede a steady stream of ball-slowing infringements, this game got close.

And then there was Bryan Habana. In previous weeks, watching the Bulls go from dull to awful, I doubted that the flying winger could make much difference at all when he returned from injury.

Surely no single player could affect a side’s ability to perform so profoundly. But he did, and with every swerving yard he made the Bulls’ confidence grew.

After captains Troy Flavell and Wikus van Heerden had exchanged tries, the Blues were lucky to have a 17-7 lead when Keven Mealamu scored in the corner. A path had been cleared for him by Isaia Toeava, and the officials had missed it completely.

For some reason (maybe bad officiating made them feel at home) the Bulls responded well. Every time Habana put them back on the front foot, the Afrikaaner forwards compounded their interest.

Van Heerden scored his second as the massive Bulls pack drove over, and hooker Derick Kuun finished off a jinking Habana run that had the Blues defence in disarray. At 21-20, the visitors had the lead for the first time.

Then up stepped Nick Evans. His sideline conversions and long-range penalties had kept the Blues in touch, and from long range he banged over a match-winning droppie with the sort of calm that would have had Hugo Porta whistling in appreciation.

It kept the Blues in the top four, with two South Island teams, three Australian teams and a bye left for them to face before the semifinals.

In other games, the Sharks stayed unbeaten with a 22-10 win over the Reds in Durban, the Stormers beat the Force 32-16 in Perth and the Waratahs hung tough against the Cheetahs, winning 23-19 in Sydney. The Brumbies and Lions had a bye.

With the business half of the competition upon us it seems that the experimental laws are now well bedded in, but the game will remain at a crossroads until those laws are ratified.

The Super 14 is the shop window for the new game.

It is vital that the spectacle remains an improved one down here, but leniencies are being exploited and the spectacle will be at risk as long as referees keep trotting out their well-worn excuses about “players taking responsibility”.

Coaches and players, at the top level of the world’s only meaningful sport in which possession is genuinely contested, will by definition play to the very edge of the law.

We’ve had our orientation, our ELVs 101. If the referees now get ruthless about ball-killing, we can look forward to a great season crescendo.

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The rugby itself was very exciting. The new laws improved the spectacle by making play flow, and both teams were desperate for wins so the contest was brutal for the full eighty minutes.

By the time Ben Atiga landed his dramatic final minute penalty to separate the sides and give the Blues a 17-14 win, we were all exhausted from the adrenaline of an emotional roller coaster ride.

But there were many things wrong with the experience, all to do with bad marketing. I wonder how many fans have been turned off by such things to the point where they no longer bother to attend live games.

Since we were travelling to the ground by train and didn’t expect to make it home until the children’s bed-time, we planned reluctantly to get dinner at the ground … we were prepared to suffer the salty dough and butcher’s offal fried in heavy grease that passes for food in urban New Zealand, but saw no reason to subject ourselves to warm Coca-Cola or bottled water at four dollars a litre, these being the liquid options, and our normal objections to such dismal fare notwithstanding.

So (along with a blanket in case the weather turned ugly) we packed a bag with drinks.

This was a big mistake. I can’t remember when the Nazi party took over security operations at New Zealand’s rugby grounds, but every stand entrance was a blockade where patrons were having their bags turned inside out and (amongst other indignities) being forced to peel the labels off their bottles.

I thought asking why would be reasonable, but the mood immediately turned ugly and threatening when I did.

Security personnel worldwide these days take their jobs way too seriously. It’s not just at New Zealand’s rugby grounds.

But as for Why in this instance, I already knew. Those sponsors paying for signage inside the ground had some bad businessmen inside the rugby administration over a barrel and could demand all sorts of exclusivity clauses. It was the same reason our co-hosting rights for the World Cup in 2003 were scuttled.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d finally gotten inside the stand and seen tastefully presented signage, but when we did it was a visual cacophony of garish orange-on-blue, black-on-yellow and green-on-red everywhere, all higgledy-piggledy and badly assembled.

Every flag and goalpost pad was sponsored, and the pitch itself was emblazoned with logos angled especially for cameras.

If the transition to professionalism had been managed properly, the main brand inside the ground would be that of the home team. All the sponsors’ merchandise would include the home team’s logo, not the other way around. Value would not have been eroded.

It looked like a junk mail circular for a bowling alley in Las Vegas, and I felt very sad for the passing of the old ways. All the austerity was gone.

Remember brass bands, marching girls and curtain-raisers, anyone? Not anymore. Once some fat, navel-and-eyebrow-pierced girls in hooker costumes had waggled their tails at the wide-eyed children and an idiot had screamed ‘Make Some Noise’ fifty times at the crowd, hoping to exhort more than a distracted whoop of support for some motorcross riders, the rugby finally began.

One of the children not used to the live theatre was caught out by the sudden drop in volume and, thinking there was some kind of pre-match lull, actually missed kick-off.

But that still wasn’t the end of the distractions. Every time there was an injury break, the ground announcer (who obviously learned deejaying for a live crowd in a Kowloon City karaoke bar) would spin his idea of a classic hit. Okay, his first choice wasn’t bad – Queen’s We Will Rock You is undoubtedly one of the world’s top ten stadium tunes.

But the next three injuries were punctuated by Brown Girl In The Ring, the theme from Happy Days, and something called Roots Woman that I didn’t recognise.

It was incongruous, idiotic and as a New Zealander slightly embarrassing. Luckily the only foreign fans were South Africans, where Pat Benatar and Bon Jovi have just hit big.

I’ll say one thing FOR Eden Park. Travelling by train was a real pleasure. If work ever actually starts on the stadium upgrade (it hasn’t yet… tick tock, tick tock) they must further encourage patrons to avail themselves of this the only viable public transport option to and from the ground.

The weekend had begun in front of the television as usual, watching the Crusaders slip around in the Waratahs’ spilled guts. It was close to begin with, 6-0 to the Crusaders at half-time and 7-6 to the Waratahs shortly afterwards, but then the home side bothered to engage forward gear and flattened the Australian obstacle in front of them.

Four tries and a steadily increasing dominance at set piece and the breakdown later, the traditional imbalance was restored. Everything about the Crusaders’ 34-7 performance smacked of patience and composure. Even the bonus point try was scored in the final minute.

The Waratahs had enjoyed a week off beforehand, a week which they’d obviously spent contemplating a far more glorious result. They seemed inordinately distressed afterwards by the occasional penalty having gone against them, but don’t be fooled… this is an old Australian trick when playing overseas.

Are the Waratahs just playing ‘dumb’?

Because the channels back home are dominated by weird local sports and only one newspaper regularly pays for its reporter to attend road games, they think they can get away with making a stink about the referees after losses and never admitting to their own faults.

But this was against a legendary outfit, the leanest, meanest machine in rugby. The best thing to do after playing and losing to the Crusaders in Christchurch is to shrug and move on, so it was surprising to hear the normally savvy Waratahs complain so loudly. Perhaps after such a hiding they think the secret to staying in this competition mentally is in remaining defiant. Fair enough.

The Highlanders lost 28-36 to the Force, the other smart Australian team, in Queenstown on Saturday afternoon. They probably should have won (again) but they’ve caught the losing habit and managed to fritter away a lead through defensive indiscipline, silly penalties and intercept passes.

The Chiefs beat the Bulls 43-27 in Hamilton, keeping their faint hopes alive. It’s not too late for them to mount a late charge, but every game from now on will be crucial and any more losses will put them in a must-win situation. It’s not just the points that go begging whenever winnable games slip from the grasp, it’s the fatal erosion of confidence in your own abilities at vital junctures.

That’s why this win was one they needed so very badly. The Chiefs have been watching the demise of the Bulls as closely as anyone, and being the first team to allow them a road victory would have been profoundly humiliating. Instead they created six tries and finished the sixth round with some much needed momentum.

The Bulls, meanwhile, are probably going to finish 2008 with the worst record of any defending champion. If taking only Victor Matfield and Bryan Habana out of the side that won the 2007 final makes them into easybeats, something is very, very wrong in Pretoria.

In other games, the Brumbies beat the Cheetahs 29-23 in Canberra and the Lions drew 24-all with the Reds in Johannesburg. The Sharks and Hurricanes had byes.

I’m not going to stop taking the kids to games. Security aside, this essay is meant as testimony to Auckland’s crass, headlong corporate culture in particular and not New Zealand’s in general. Waikato Stadium is nowhere near as badly corrupted as Eden Park, Westpac Stadium in the capital still has a touch of magic, and you can’t rub shoulders with the rabid fans in Christchurch without actually acquiring a surface film of red-and-black paint flakes.

When I return to Eden Park I will remember to pre-peel my drinks and prepare for sensory bombardment. I just have a nagging fear that it’s going to get worse before it gets better and there will be new unpleasant surprises sprung on us each time we venture there.

It’s already only a bloody-minded stubbornness that keeps me going now, along with an iron gut and a willingness to empty the coffers in exchange for a few tiny, uncomfortable plastic seats. Let’s hope the other grounds aren’t going to go the same way quite so quickly.

And television, by the way, will not be the winner in this battle, it will ultimately lose right alongside everyone else if people stop attending grounds.

Sport is competing with a rising flood of bad taste on television. It’s obvious that television programmers already take advantage of people’s small screen addictions by pushing whatever cheap guff is available – degenerates and assorted other craven, selling their souls for any fleeting measure of fame. And the fast dollar driving standards down will turn a population’s brains to mush in the historical blink of an eye.

While a few too many logos and desperate sales clauses at sports fields are still a long way removed from Brett Michael and Flava Flav swapping diseases with hoochies on primetime, the connection is there no matter how tenuous.

Sport can promote itself without cheapening itself.

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Something’s bothering me. It’s not the presidential race in America, one half of it between the two biggest and most recently emancipated demographics in the electorate, or the fact that the electorate is too stupid to make such a decision. And it’s not the lead sinker I hit my fishing buddy in the head with on Saturday or the uncharitable names I was called as a result.

No, as usual it’s rugby … but I’ll get to those problems later.

I may have to revise my top four predictions somewhat, after the Stormers’ impressive 35-26 showing against the Chiefs of Friday night. With a pack at the upper end of the size and mobility scale operating smoothly, the Cape Town-based franchise exposed all of the Chiefs’ weaknesses and are now halfway through their Australasian road trip with two wins from two so far.

Their loose forwards played particularly well, especially at the breakdown where they dominated proceedings. Their backs were direct and certain, running onto the ball aggressively and exploiting their possession advantage. If they continue to develop their attacking mindset they will be a handful for any team.

The Chiefs … well, they will knock off the odd side, and prove by doing so that the side in question are NOT top four contenders… they have the talent but not the cohesion to mount anything other than intermittent challenges to the established order.

The Hurricanes also put themselves in position to challenge for the semifinals with their fourth win, a 33-15 thrashing of the Brumbies in Canberra. The Brumbies aren’t one of the sides to measure yourselves against anymore, with youngsters not coming through like they would have if David Nucifora had been allowed to carry on his development program… and with their bench still full of those who prevented it, injured paycheck players past their prime… but in Canberra, and already having strung together some tough results, the Hurricanes looked back to their lethal attacking best.

They survived being reduced to fourteen men at a crucial stage in the first half, and after riding out that storm kicked into gear with a scorching series of counter attacks. With their tails up they are hard to stop. The key to beating them will be not letting them get their tails up in the first place.

The Blues suffered an embarrassing 17-27 loss to the Force at Albany, their dropping off the pace largely what has brought these lesser sides into the equation. They had the making or breaking of the game in their own hands, leading 17-7 for a long period mid-match but failing to turn territory and possession into points.

There was too much razzle dazzle, too many risky passes thrown, too many forwards looking to sidestep and exhibit their handling skills. This is all very well when it comes off, but godawful when it doesn’t.

The Force remained calm under the high-stepping Polynesian cavalry charge, taking their own chances for points whenever they were presented.

They were helped by an injury to Nick Evans. With the five-eighths unleashing attacking weapons wider out, the Blues still had control of the game… even though it looked a little hairy. When the skinny white boy running the Blues backline was taken from the field concussed, the inmates took over the asylum.

The Crusaders restored a little hurt Kiwi pride by towelling the Cheetahs 55-7 in Christchurch later on Saturday night. Not much to surprise here, just a well-oiled machine at its bloody-minded best… needing only half the possession on offer to humiliate the men from Free State.

The Crusaders don’t have many off nights. They could afford to rest a few top line players even, and still grind their opposition into the Lancaster Park dirt.

The Reds surprised everyone with a 40-8 win over the Bulls, coming back from a 92-3 reaming in 2007 against the same side, while the Sharks made it five in a row by beating the Lions 16-8 at Ellis Park in wet conditions. The Highlanders and Waratahs had a bye.

It’s still looking like the Crusaders are way ahead of the chasing bunch, with the Blues, Sharks, Waratahs, Hurricanes, Force and Stormers all fighting it out for the remaining three semifinal spots.

Inky’s New Zealand Form XV so far is dominated by Crusaders and Blues.

15. Leon MacDonald (Crusaders)
14. Anthony Tuitavake (Blues)
13. Casey Laulala (Crusaders)
12. Stephen Brett (Crusaders)
11. Joe Rokocoko (Blues)
10. Dan Carter (Crusaders)
9. Andrew Ellis (Crusaders)
8. Nick Williams (Blues)
7. Richie McCaw (Crusaders)
6. Jerry Collins (Hurricanes)
5. Troy Flavell (Blues)
4. Ali Williams (Crusaders)
3. Greg Somerville (Crusaders)
2. Andrew Hore (Hurricanes)
1. Tony Woodcock (Blues)

If I was picking an All Blacks team I would still have Mils Muliaina at fullback, Sitiveni Sivivatu on the wing, Conrad Smith at centre, Piri Weepu at halfback and Keven Mealamu at hooker, but a Super 14 Form XV is an opportunity to acknowledge those who excel at this particular level. Add young Benson Stanley of the Blues as a back-up midfielder, Nick Evans as Carter’s understudy, Rodney So’oialo, Mose Tuiali’i, Jerome Kaino and Kieran Read as back-up loosies, Brad Thorn and Michael Paterson as reserve second-rowers, then pick your own two reserve props out of John Afoa, Neemia Tialata (my two), Jamie Mackintosh, Wyatt Crockett or John Schwalger… and you’ve still got a fairly formidable 17-13 split All Blacks squad, even after the defections of Carl Hayman, Chris Jack and Aaron Mauger.

You might prefer Jimmy Cowan or Isaia Toeava somewhere in that backline mix, or still rate Chris Masoe for instance, but there can’t be too many more names in serious contention. Injuries, of course, will play a part before June and the first test of the year.

Towards the end of Graham Henry’s previous four year term I had begun to accept his selections without questioning. His record almost demanded it until the wheels fell off in Cardiff.

From now on I will be calling it as I see it. Henry has had quite enough dispensations. He neither needs nor deserves any more blind acquiescence. He doesn’t need three hookers and three halfbacks, World Cup or no World Cup, he doesn’t need four wingers when the attrition rate for flankers is so high, and he doesn’t need any more players in any position who are too dumb to understand how a fifteen-man team works.

He certainly doesn’t need any more of Smithy’s Kool Aid laced with attacksedrine. With the world’s most talented rugby players in his squad, all he needs to find is the balance between full-on offence and common sense points-banking.

It’s not jumping the gun to be thinking this way. Now is the time to study those capabilities in players, to be identifying the smartest and not merely the fastest and strongest.

I can live with losses… I’ve covered the worst of them in the last decade and kept my chin up no matter what, but I’m tired of losing when losses are avoidable. I’m tired of yellow cards in waiting, meatsacks like Luke McAlister and Sione Lauaki being given responsibilities they’re not qualified to shoulder simply because they test the biometric house down and have thighs too big to wear trousers in public.

The danger of the All Black brand being irreparably devalued is becoming more and more present by the day. Dan Carter is currently considering details of big contracts with foreign clubs, and even Richie McCaw is rumoured to be weighing up such offers. The SANZAR contract with News Ltd has less than two years to run, and the Australians are trying to broker a 26-week Super 14 with Japanese involvement, signalling the beginning of the end for province-based franchises. The new experimental laws are creating a rift between the northern and southern hemispheres, and the battle lines are being drawn up with the south on the poor side of the equation.

We may be witnessing the death of the the last great sport built on amateur ethics, just as a new set of laws have almost perfected it.

How quickly it happens… you turn your back for a second, distracted by issues such as the integrity of the spectacle, and the damage is done. In the advent of professionalism we have seen the death of touring, trials, North v South matches and many other worthy traditions. All of those past fixtures and endeavours were killed wholly or partly by wealthy clubs not releasing players, and yet we still listen gullibly to jackals talking of further privatisation… while the tide of young southern players moving to northern clubs has accelerated almost out of control.

NO to the expansion of Super 14 unless the expansion includes Argentina and the Pacific Islands. NO to European clubs poaching any more of our players. NO to any more tests when the existing ones are enough to prevent international players turning out for their local clubs. No no no no no… damn, I wish I had solutions to offer instead of this useless howl of anguish.

I get shouted down as a troglodyte whenever I speak of such things. Association Football has the successful model we should copy, say the Titirangi soccer dads in their anglo-kiwi accents, you have to move with the times.

Like Hell, I answer. Rugby seems to be moving that way without my help. I’ll remain an advocate for slowing the pace of change. Just like selecting a different All Blacks fifteen every week, we needn’t just because we can.

The Hurricanes did little more than make their tackles, and took the one chance that came their way for a try to Jerry Collins midway through the first half. The rest of the match saw the Highlanders banging away at the Hurricanes defence, but every time they came within sight of the tryline they would either cough up the pill in contact or kick possession away over-ambitiously.

I remember playing rugby in Otago, back in the early eighties. Some things were very different then, some things were exactly the same.

The differences were not subtle ones. My senior playing days at Otago University were immediately post 1981 Springboks tour, and rugby was a dirty word amongst the twinkle-toed commies who ran the local student newspaper and set the political agenda. Helen Clark, Geoffrey Palmer and Fran Wilde were popular heroes whose revolutionary social legislation made any sort of institutionalised violence practically illegal.

And yet Gary Knight getting flour-bombed was a source of amusement rather than outrage for most of my flaky classmates.

I lied to girlfriends about my whereabouts on the weekends… disappearing on Fridays and reappearing on Sundays covered in cuts and bruises, giving various far-fetched excuses for my injuries… and though I knew it was kind of cowardly, for some strange peer-pressured reason I kept up the charade rather than just cutting such shrill harpies loose and fighting over one of the few rugby-tolerant girls available.

These days I like to think if I had my time again I would have the courage of my convictions. But then things are very different in Dunedin these days, rugby is an accepted part of New Zealand culture.

Other things are exactly the same. Back then scorn would be poured on halves and five-eighths by their forwards if they kicked away hard-earned possession or squandered opportunities close to the line, just like today in rugby’s professional era. Backs who blew chances would be punished at after-match functions… denied beer, and humiliated in ways that were less than good-humoured.

If I was a member of the Highlanders forward pack with the same complaints on Friday, I would be furious with those team-mates having high numbers on their backs if they tried half-cocked cross-kicks and aimless grubbers inside the opposition’s twenty-two, when holding on to possession for just a couple more phases might have broken the resolute Hurricanes defence.

Some of the defence, in fact, went way past resolute. Jerry Collins’ forearm on reserve hooker David Hall was downright brutal, and Ma’a Nonu’s ugly high tackle on prop Clint Newland was yet another blot on his already-spotty record.

Oh well… when things aren’t going your way and you’ve lost that winning habit, the close ones seem to slip from your grasp just that little bit more easily.

The Chiefs were next up on Saturday, and pulled off a nail-biting 22-20 victory against the Cheetahs in Hamilton.

I have absolutely no memories from my youth that equate to matches like this one, by the way. The match was dominated by long electronic conversations between the referee and his television match official in the grandstand, which would have seemed preposterous just a few years back. It was also played, between these frequent and tedious interruptions, and albeit with few other stoppages under the new laws, at a furious pace… unlike in my day when you could actually catch your breath between headlocks.

God, not to mention that South African teams are now half-full of black men. In those days they weren’t even allowed on golf courses.

Committing all their usual ill-disciplined and impatient errors, the Chiefs found themselves 0-17 down. The Cheetahs were rampant, nailing quick tries to Eddie Fredericks and Jongi Nokwe. The Chiefs lineout was a mess, and some of the tactical kicking was probably affected by the knowledge that the Cheetahs practically owned the sidelines.

Things looked bad.

Something eventually clicked, but it’s almost impossible to say what. The star of the Chiefs forward pack was young flanker Fafili Levave, who was into everything and perhaps inspirational to his older and more experienced team-mates. Maybe he turned the tide.

Maybe it was the long flight across from Africa that left the Cheetahs legless at the death, or maybe the Chiefs were fitter to begin with and it was a combination of both these physical factors that saw the home side finish so much stronger.

The comeback wasn’t smooth sailing by any means. The pace of play was frenetic, and with players stretched all over the field there were constant opportunities for counter-attack whenever ball was turned over. Simple tries to flanker Tom Harding, wing Sitiveni Sivivatu and second five Callum Bruce were punctuated by far more panicky moves, and with the TMO being called into play so often no real rhythm was ever established.

But a win is a win, and the Chiefs dug deep to find what they needed… in a word, character.

So it was with the Blues, down 0-19 against the Sharks at King’s Park and with an Australian referee making some mystifying rulings. It didn’t seem to matter to him that players weren’t on their feet, he deemed a ruck as being formed whenever three players were involved and irrespective of whether they were on the ground or not.

The usual Sharks blueprint applied, lots of niggle and jersey-pulling off the ball, lots of shouldering in the lineouts, collapsing scrums, and players running en masse through gaps to block tacklers. It was very effective. Against a team full of homesick young Polynesians, in fact, out of their comfort zone in a typical Durban street-savvy turf war, it was rugby at its old-fashioned best.

The Blues came back to within striking distance with some sparkling rugby, quite courageous under the circumstances, but three in a row on the Dark Continent was a bridge too far. They pulled it back to 17-22 before the final whistle, with tries to first-five Nick Evans and halfback Taniela Moa, but the home team’s headstart was too big.

The Crusaders and Force fought out the best match of the round. Both teams were coming off their South African legs of the competition, the Crusaders having breezed through Pretoria and Cape Town while the Force had gutsed out two victories in Bloemfontein and Johannesburg after dropping one to the Sharks in Durban.

After such a hellish itinerary the Force’s home town advantage was almost nullified… I say almost because a solid 30,000 people still packed out Subiaco Oval with the Crusaders road show in town.

Uncharacteristic Crusader errors allowed the home team to build momentum, with the wonderfully gifted Matt Giteau steering their ship in the number 10 jersey. His opposite Dan Carter was having a shocker by his own high standards, kicking badly and not unleashing his outside weapoms with the customary fluidity. A freakish solo try kept the ledger even. He slipped Giteau’s tackle with great balance and somehow maintained speed, but Carter was not his usual brilliant self.

Prop Greg Somerville also burrowed over, but tries to the Force’s standout young flanker David Pocock, centre Ryan Cross and number eight Richard Brown kept the hosts' tails up. The mood was hysterical as the Force pushed out to a 24-12 lead with second five Lachlan MacKay’s try.

But the Crusaders have another gear that other sides don't. Their calm in tight spots is legendary, and once again it proved decisive.

First lock Ali Williams smashed over from a quick tap. A long series of freekicks taken quickly had put the Crusaders into scoring position, and the Force felt the match's tenor change. Now in defence mode, they tried to stay calm as the red-and-black monster began its traditional final minutes rampage. Next to cross was halfback Andy Ellis, pulling in a high pass from number eight Mose Tuiali’i whose storming run had left defenders sprawling.

The Force gathered their composure and tried to keep play down the Crusaders' end, the crowd screaming its approval at the helter skelter pace of play… and if this had been a World Cup or any other event where some kind of Holy Grail was at stake, the New Zealanders' nerve might have failed, some foolhardy youngster hot-housed to be a sports hero might have tried something rash… but it was just the Force at Subiaco Oval, on just another hot Perth afternoon, and the Crusaders had that invulnerable glint in their eyes.

Possession was maintained, the tide swept unstoppably upfield, and when in scoring position the final blow was delivered with deadly precision. Badly-cleared ball was flung wide, quick hands beat the rushing, desperate defence, and centre Casey Laulala cantered in at the corner to seal a tremendous victory.

On a weekend when the other two unbeaten sides were playing each other, and with the victor in that battle being the team that hasn’t left home yet, this win in Perth was a loud-and-clear signal to the chasing pack. We are the benchmark, the Crusaders said yet again… step right up and test yourselves against us, we like nothing better.

In other matches the Waratahs beat the Brumbies 24-17 in Sydney, the Bulls beat the Lions 31-17 in Pretoria, and the Stormers beat the Reds 34-16 in Brisbane. Of these teams, only the dogged Waratahs look to be serious top four contenders. They know their core tasks and play like they understand and trust each other.

They have a bye this week, which they will need to make the most of because their next match is in Christchurch… not their favourite city.

I didn’t fish at all this weekend. With such classic match-ups in store it was always going to be a round for full immersion, and I was so wired after the seven Super 14 games that I had to watch replays of the three Six Nations tests afterwards just to calm down again.

By the time Wales had ground down Ireland 16-12 at Croke Park my pulse was decidedly less hectic, and by half-time at Murrayfield I was asleep.

Did I miss much?

1. Corner posts will be positioned at the outside junction of the goal line and touch line.
2. If a player is in possession of the ball and touches the corner post he will not be in touch unless he touches the touchline or the ground beyond the touchline.
3. If the ball is not being carried by a player and it touches the corner post, the ball will not be deemed to be touch-in-goal.
4. When a defending player receives the ball outside the 22 metre line and either passes, puts or takes the ball back inside the 22, if the ball is then kicked directly into touch, the lineout is in line with where the ball was kicked.
5. When a defending player receives the ball outside the 22 metre line and either passes, puts or takes the ball back inside the 22, if a tackle, ruck or maul is subsequently formed and the ball is then kicked into touch, the lineout is where the ball crossed the touch line.
6. On a quick throw-in, the ball can be thrown straight or backwards towards the goal line of the team throwing in, but not forward towards the opposition goal line.
7. In a lineout, lifting, pre-gripping and using another team mate to lever are all allowed.
8. Players entering the breakdown area must do so through “the gate”.
9. Immediately the tackle occurs there are offside lines.
10. The halfback, or anyone clearing from the base of the breakdown, should not be touched unless he visibly has his hands on the ball.
11. If the ball is unplayable at a tackle or ruck, the side that did not take the ball into contact will receive a free kick.
12. If a maul becomes unplayable, the team not in possession at the start of the maul receives a free kick.
13. The offside line for players who are not either in the scrum or halfback is five metres behind the hindmost foot of the scrum.
14. For all offences other than offside, not entering through the gate and foul play, the sanction is a free kick.
15. Assistant referees can assist referees in any manner required.

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are designed to make the touchline and corner posts easier to police in scoring situations.

Numbers 4 and 5 ensure that teams may not contrive to find advantageous touch.

Numbers 6 and 7 merely formalise common practice.

Numbers 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 put the onus on both teams to free the ball at the breakdown, and serve to eliminate confusion previously arising from inconsistencies surrounding tackled ball, ruck and maul situations.

Number 13 makes for far more attacking space from the scrum.

Number 14 is simply a change in punishment, giving players the benefit of the doubt for accidental infringements.

Number 15 means that the referee can ask help from his assistants whenever adjudicating.

All make perfect sense, and so far have produced some sparkling rugby when combined correctly with the well-established smart rugby basics.

New Zealand teams are (mostly) playing a sensible mix of patience and adventure, setting the same solid platform up front as usual but instantly slipping into full attack mode whenever opportunities arise.

The Australian teams appear to be willing to change, but more cautiously. They look to be relishing the space to attack, but are unwilling to chance their arm except in conventional attacking positions, and when on defence are finding out the hard way that kicking away possession is even more of an error than before.

The South African teams (with the exception of the Cheetahs) appear to be putting less faith in the new possible game plans, largely sticking to their stodgy old blueprints of territorial kicking and battering forward drives.

Which is fine, until you come up against a team of fit young New Zealanders.

The Blues and Crusaders both carried on their winning ways in South Africa last weekend. The two games contrasted vividly, and so illustrate the stylistic differences still possible under the new laws.

The Blues put 50 points on the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein while conceding 26. The New Zealanders were hell-bent on attack, and so naturally they neglected defence to a certain extent. Joe Rokocoko scored his first hat-trick for the Blues, running a succession of lethal angles through the Free State backline off sympathetic passes from his five-eighths and fellow three-quarters.

The Cheetahs put in a gutsy physical performance that the Blues paid tribute to afterwards, but they could not deal with the pace of the Blues’ play. All they could do was enter into the free-running spirit of the occasion and post as many points of their own as possible. They are third on the try-scoring tally so far in 2008, strangely enough, without having yet won a game.

It was the first time any Super Rugby side has scored successive half centuries in the Republic. Next week the Blues would be foolish to try for three fifties in a row against the Sharks in Durban. A win of any sort will suffice against the most dangerous of African franchises.

The Crusaders’ win in Cape Town would have been like the Blues’ if some of their final passes had stuck. Many potential tries were bombed within sight of the goal-line. It’s funny sometimes how obviously a niggly team can affect the patience of the opposition. The Crusaders were just as well equipped to out-think the Stormers as the Blues had been with the Cheetahs, but the last shred of composure when needed was often missing… used up in jersey-pulling and off-the-ball incidents leading up to the final phases.

The Crusaders won 22-0 in the end, failing to secure a bonus point fourth try but well enough satisfied in keeping the Stormers scoreless for the first time ever. The beauty of what they accomplished was in how they adjusted. They kept the points ticking over without relinquishing a vise-like grip of defensive pressure.

The Hurricanes registered their second win, beating the Chiefs in Wellington 39-19. Things are starting to click for the competition’s favourite mavericks, with their lately powerful front row asserting themselves and their loose forwards dominating secondary phases. Jerry Collins in particular rose to his full capabilities and produced a mighty performance, putting the recently much-touted Liam Messam in his place. With the steadily increasing flow of possession the Hurricanes backline found its rhythm.

The Highlanders lost their third match in a row with a close-loss bonus point, 12-15 to the Waratahs in Dunedin. The Waratahs to their credit held onto possession tenaciously, still guilty of occasional aimless kicking but determined up front and with an impressive fifteen-man understanding of their own offensive and defensive patterns, which they moved between seamlessly as and when required.

In a similar match on another night, the Highlanders may have reversed the result… it was only a dropped pass here or a narrowly missed kick there away from a win, even a late intercept going the Waratahs’ way… but when things aren’t going your way they have a strange habit of continuing in that vein.

In other matches the Force beat the Lions 18-16 at Ellis Park, the Brumbies beat the Reds 43-11 in Canberra, and the Sharks beat the Bulls 29-15 at Loftus Versfeld. There isn’t much to describe about these results which can’t be inferred by that already stated… teams with an inclination towards expressive rugby are profiting, and conservative teams are their bunnies.

It will be interesting to see how the SANZAR teams perform against their northern visitors in the series of June internationals, when the new experimental laws are shelved. Perhaps the southern rugby players will have learned things playing the new laws which prove just as valuable under the old ones?

More likely though that the old basics such as the ball being faster than the man will retain their significance, but that matches played under the old laws will afford less opportunites to display them.

I like what I’m seeing with the new laws being trialled in the Super 14, but remember the last time we thought the game looked particularly good (early to mid-nineties), when the IRB for some reason changed the laws in favour of negative rugby.

In this latest case the new experimental laws represent a move towards positive play, and it seems that New Zealand teams in particular are thriving under them … which makes me doubt that they will eventually be ratified. Trialling them in Super 14 may even disadvantage the SANZAR nations when meeting the European teams they usually beat like gongs.

They are, however, hopefully giving us a small taste of rugby’s future.

Rugby appears to be trying to shake off the old image of conservatism … or, perhaps more correctly, an old school and a new school appear to be struggling for the upper hand at present.

I remain optimistic where change is concerned. I certainly still sometimes worry that the old-fashioned tenets of rugby, once lost, might be fondly remembered far too late in a world where almost every other game is tainted with bad sportsmanship at best and outright corruption at worst, surely old-fashioned values are to be treasured.

But I hope the game can change for the better without throwing away the meaningful things that rugby represents.

As for those who oppose change simply because they think rugby already has too many laws, I submit that playing this sport requires greater mental abilities from its participants. We don’t want an inundation of dummies who can’t understand WHY they have to play this way. There’s room for the odd knuckle-dragging brute, of course, but a team full of them goes nowhere.

Soccer, famously, has only a small handful of rules… but then almost every one of history’s great soccer players appears to be some kind of badly-adjusted man-child who neglected school classes in favour of kicking a ball around the streets obsessively while picking up various addictions.

Anyway, the new laws when exploited correctly are producing the kind of spectacle we used to see in the mid-nineties, a furiously paced game that delighted spectators as the new southern professionals took attacking rugby to a new level.

The IRB’s response at that time was to complicate the breakdown laws to a point where slower British teams could manipulate the pace of play. For a whole decade teams of a free-spirited nature struggled to dominate the more oppressive. World Cups were won by those whose typical game plan was to run obstruction, stitch up touchlines and solicit kickable infringements.

The new laws appear to have changed that, with (a) stricter, simpler, more consistent guidelines governing the maul, ruck and tackled ball area, (b) more attacking space mandated, and (c) by the benefit of doubt being given (i.e. freekicks rather than penalties) for anything other than obviously deliberate infringements. At last it seems that space can be made for backlines to play expansively without the strength of the up-front platform being compromised.

Guess who THAT suits. Yes, that’s right … New Zealand teams.

Well, the two smartest ones at least. The Crusaders and Blues are currently streets ahead in their adjustment programs, trusting the officials to let the breakdowns almost police themselves so they can concentrate on attack and counter-attack from virtually anywhere on the pitch … and the crowds love it.

The crowds in Pretoria and Johannesburg didn’t love it so much, mind you, seeing their teams get beaten 54-19 and 55-10 by the Crusaders and Blues respectively.

Fifty-four points, in fact, was the most any defending champion side had shipped in Super Rugby. The Bulls faithful stopped bellowing their guttural, self-aggrandizing hymns by half-time, and by the hour mark were leaving Loftus Versfeld in droves showing open disgust.

Dan Carter and Stephen Brett were carving the title-holders apart like tenderised gemsbok steaks, with Richie McCaw and the Crusaders pack dominating every facet of forward play. McCaw, in fact, concentrated more than half his energy on providing clever support links while the other forwards took care of business in the tight.

The Blues did much the same thing at Ellis Park.

The Lions were full of themselves, superbly confident after their narrow win at Bloemfontein last week, and tried to play the altitude card to their advantage. Matches in Johannesburg in yesteryear were nightmares for visiting teams, with oxygen debt increasing at every stride and the giant local forwards sapping every ounce of strength by slogging up and down the fat man’s track as much as possible.

By half-time a touring side’s lungs would be chafed from straining, and vision would be blurred to the point where the tattoo on your opposing prop’s bicep appeared to be a meat inspection stamp.

Not any more, for the well-prepared attacking side at least. The overweight side now has the harder time of it, with more total yards to cover. Altitude is still a beastly hurdle, and South Africa is no picnic at the best of times… conditions are hellish for sitting around drinking, let alone all-in wrestling with the natives. But teams playing positive rugby can dictate terms, finding space to exploit any advantage in aerobic fitness, with the assurance of knowing any pain in their unacclimatised lungs is worth the effort if they accurately maintain possession.

So it was with the Blues. Nick Evans is a lethal attacker even with two flankers and two midfielders breathing down his neck… with five extra yards of space and a swag of front foot ball, he is an assassin.

When he wasn’t carving the defence apart himself he was handing sure ball to Benson Stanley on his outside, Isaia Toeava cutting back from centre or Isa Nacewa slicing through from fullback. His kicking was as long and accurate as his passing, and the Blues backline enjoyed their armchair ride.

Lock Kurtis Haiu, unwanted by any New Zealand franchise in 2007 (and worth watching even more closely now because it wasn’t too long ago that people were worried about where Ali Williams’ replacement in the Blues would come from), scored two tries in a great game.

Big number eight Nick Williams was devastating both on attack and defence, ably assisted by blindside Jerome Kaino, prop John Afoa, hooker Keven Mealamu and captain Troy Flavell, all thirsty for work when it came to separating man from ball or stomping over the gain line.

Their lineout still needs work. It may be too early to predict that their lack of aerial grace will cost them the title, but at the moment seeing as it’s clearly looking like a two-way race between them and the Crusaders, the transfer south of Ali Williams looms as a significant factor.

A clever young associate believes that at Super 14 level, under the new laws, a lack of lineout skill will be less significant than the added mobility and greater ball skills of the modern second rower. Time will tell, he’s something of a soothsayer. I tend to think the old set piece skills will retain their importance for a while yet.

The other New Zealand teams produced a mixed bag. The Hurricanes were difficult to watch even in beating the Reds 23-18 in Wellington. Far too many errors are still marring their flow. They appear to be attempting the same thing that is working for the Blues and Crusaders, but the passes just aren’t sticking … so while they haven’t yet found their usual flair with the ball in hand they will take some stopping when they do.

The Chiefs beat the Waratahs 20-17 in Hamilton, perhaps lucky that a try to Sitiveni Sivivatu was not referred upstairs to the TMO and definitely lucky that a last minute goal to Stephen Donald redeemed several earlier misses, not to mention a dropped ball over the tryline.

To their credit, they had obviously spent the week pounding the tackle bags after their drubbing by the Blues on Eden Park. Several monstrous hits left New South Welsh teeth rattling, and the purpose with which they threw themselves into contact was inspiring. The next step for them will be finding a bit of finesse to go with their gritty attitude.

The Highlanders came even closer than last week, but were still on the end of a heartbreaking 22-20 loss to the Brumbies in Canberra. Another South African referee manufactured a yellow card for them out of nothing, but perceived injustices or otherwise, an easily kickable penalty was missed that should have given them the win.

The new laws appear to reward positive play so long as the level of execution matches the intent. I may be looking at it sunny side up, but I believe (sooner or later) that the new experimental variations will finally deliver the sort of rugby we all crave… forwards being forwards and backs being backs, with points as just reward for positive effort. More power to those who seek to enhance the spectacle.

The modern game will demand it. Northern critics who extol the virtues of muddy low-scoring kick-fests, reasoning that the drama is enhanced by the lowness and therefore closeness of the score, have almost had their day.

If, come November, the new laws are not ratified and the optimistic few million in the south who enjoyed the revamped spectacle have to witness a temporary return to the old mashed potato style made famous by the English in an immediately bygone era, it will not be the death of Rugby.

It will merely be a footnote in its long and illustrious history, written one bright day in the near future, saying that the inevitable changes experienced some administrative growing pains while the power base of rugby shifted.

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I spent the summer fishing and giving up smoking. Knowing that I had to live another four years to see the William Webb Ellis trophy back where it belongs.

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And that my dream of seeing the All Blacks win three World Cups in a row was delayed by at least the same interval, I decided to manage my health and well-being more cleverly.

Seeing the current All Blacks back playing Super 14 rugby at the beginning of the season helped enormously. Life was going to get a bit too complicated if I had to make another year of excuses for such a hare-brained scheme as the conditioning program. Every time I ignored the arrogance of such a move, the toll it took on me psychologically was acute.

With the benefit of hindsight I can see that complacently handing the South Africans a Super 14 title was what started the rot. Suddenly their confidence was back and they rode that hubris all the way to a world championship, only having to beat Fiji, Argentina and England along the way.

By the time the All Blacks had allowed a revolving-door selection policy to rotate out of control, New Zealand was even more vulnerable. We laughed at Clive Woodward when he selected close to fifty Lions for his tour of New Zealand, but we became guilty of the same error ourselves and undermined our own strength by overplanning… putting the event beyond our mental capacity to deal with.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to believe. I know many of you did the same. The long sequences of test wins in Bledisloe Cup and Tri Nations turned those events into devalued sideshows, and the more relentless the march of wins between World Cups became, the more likely a spectacular fall from grace became.

I know that now. The benefit of hindsight is all very well, but the shame of complicity dogs me. We still have a very serious problem, having reappointed the same man as head coach. Unless Graham Henry admits his culpability, admits that his plans were deeply flawed, we are in grave danger of repeating the error.

I said some things post World Cup that were intended palliatively, identifying our vicarious projections onto the All Blacks as harmful. The horror of October was an opportunity for us to grow as a nation, and I urged anyone feeling the loss deeply to buck up and be a mensch. I still believe we have a lot of work to do as a nation to rid ourselves of the collective chip on our shoulder, and plenty further to go on the road to being a mature nation.

But when I suggested that we as fans should accept some of the responsibility ourselves I did not suspect for a moment that Henry would fail to see how flawed his planning was and refuse to apologise. I thought he would be big enough to come out and say that he had made mistakes… one more go-round and he would know better, he would coach the same hard-nosed rugby but without molly-coddling his team or suddenly failing to be the ruthless selector he was always previously famous for being.

Instead, Henry went into his reapplication interview armed with fifty-two minutes of videotape documenting the bad officiating of Wayne Barnes and his assistants in that fateful Cardiff quarterfinal.

No explanation of how the thirty supposedly fittest men in rugby, having been in the easist pool at the World Cup, went down like flies in a quarterfinal. No mention of how some of the smartest men in the team were sitting in the grandstand watching some of the dumbest. No concession that the leadership group, who relied on each other all to do their own jobs, couldn’t figure out that a dropkick under the French posts was the simplest option.

Just a bitchy litany of complaints about a referee who was out of his depth… like THAT will never happen again.

You think Henry was under pressure to win in 2007, after twenty years since the last New Zealand World Cup win? Try 2011 and twenty-four long years, playing at home no less. Host status will actually be a disadvantage.

New Zealand appears to have a comprehension problem at top level. Not a siege mentality yet, but it will be if the eggheads and public are not reconciled. It was not just Henry that failed to admit error, the interview process was a done deal before it began. I have it from an impeccable source that the hour delay between interviews finishing and announcement being made was entirely taken up with seven of the panel trying to convince the eighth to make it unanimous.

So John O’Neill got what he wanted AGAIN. Do you think he was going to woo Henry, Wayne Smith or Steve Hansen if Robbie Deans was appointed All Blacks coach?

Oh well…

Before he leaves, Deans can coach the Crusaders to a farewell title. Then he can unite the Australian Super 14 coaches as national selectors, recruit some Argentine props whose Australian nationality will become official in 2010, and enter the Tri Nations as New Zealand’s rugby nemesis in the making if I know anything at all about the trans-Tasman sporting psyche.

As I say, at least the All Blacks are back playing for their Super 14 teams again… er, except for Chris Jack, Aaron Mauger, Carl Hayman and a raft of others fleeing the ship those left on board hope is not sinking.

Flanker Richie McCaw, lock Ali Williams and first five-eighth Dan Carter all started well for the Crusaders, slapping the taste out of the Brumby mouths on what is now called AMI Stadium. Great contributions from number eight Mose Tuiali’i and fullback Leon MacDonald helped them on their way to a 34-3 drubbing. The Brumbies were in total disarray, kicking possession away aimlessly and unable to stop a quickly increasing flood of Crusader points.

Mils Muliaina at fullback was one of the few Chiefs to shine as they got pasted by the Blues 32-14 on Eden Park. Blown overlaps, standing starts and untidy set pieces cost the visitors dearly. The Blues for their part were well-drilled and guarded their possession well with obvious purpose at scrum and lineout time, patience at phase play crucial to fashioning a winning pattern through measured attack.

The front row of Tony Woodcock, Keven Mealamu and John Afoa, lock Troy Flavell, wing Joe Rokocoko and first-five Nick Evans all had blinders, Rokocoko with devastating speed and Evans with clever territorial kicking behind his dominating pack. The support play was tremendous, and the new laws allowing for more space were well exploited.

No progress has apparently been made, by the way, in upgrading Eden Park yet. It still holds twenty-thousand less people than we promised it would by 2011, and if I have to sit and watch while Australia poaches our hosting rights again over another stadium debacle, I may do what Hunter Thompson did when his nation re-elected George Bush.

The Hurricanes and Highlanders, meanwhile, got handed beatings by the Waratahs and Reds. The Hurricanes were at their disunified worst, throwing ball away with montonous regularity and failing to build pressure with any patience whatsoever against a lean, hungry-looking NSW side. The 20-3 scoreline flattered the visitors.

The Highlanders were a little better going down 22-16 at Suncorp Stadium. They were certainly unlucky with some disgraceful decisions, and considering they had lost Carl Hayman, Anton Oliver, James Ryan, Josh Blackie and Nick Evans amongst others since last year they managed to put up quite a brave fight, even if it was only against the Reds.

In other scores, the defending champion Bulls sneaked a 16-9 win over the Stormers in Cape Town, the Sharks beat the Force 17-10 in Durban, and the Lions sneaked past the Cheetahs 23-22 in Bloemfontein. None of the South African teams looked any different under the new laws than before.

Next week I hope the Crusaders and Blues can continue their winning ways, although Loftus Versfeld and Ellis Park are difficult venues at which to uncork champagne rugby. But a Crusaders versus Blues Super 14 final would go a long way to healing some deep scars. That’s my pick at this stage, blindly optimistic or not.

Via Inky.

A few weeks back I spoke about the All Blacks being in a dark French nightclub, plucking up the courage to go and talk to Destiny, a funny-looking older girl with smudged make-up and a strange cast in her eye. The All Blacks were asking on their nation’s behalf.

It was the sort of talk that puts undue pressure on the All Blacks.

Right about now if she had been the girl for us, Destiny would be saying yes to a rum and coke and writing her phone number on a napkin… and of course by this time next week she would also be wobbling around her bedroom all morning with a big dopey grin on her face, giggly and weak in the knees.

We now know that the date didn’t go so well. She thought we had too much baggage… and if a babe like Destiny says no, we should examine ourselves closely with an eye to improving our chances. In four years she’ll be at our house, on heat, and many other dogs will be spraying the backyard.

Those who thought it was a done deal in 2007 are the ones finding it hardest to believe. There hasn’t been a done deal in France since 1940 when Hitler decided to expand his co-prosperity sphere.

I’m worried New Zealand’s destiny is to relive the same thing over and over again, that the burden of public expectation is always going to hamstring our All Blacks. Subscribers have responded to my last palliative letter in their hundreds, and I am reassured somewhat that our comprehension problem isn’t so bad, but the question remains.

The collegial post mortem is almost complete and the reasons for our loss are manifestly clear. The rotation policy went way too far and ultimately spun out of control… it should have created depth as planned, but then the selectors should have settled on a first fifteen. Trying to field a different side every week in a seven-week tournament was ludicrous.

The leadership was missing at the death… so much for a whole group of empowered leaders, Richie McCaw being able to leave such things as dropkick decisions to others. Key members of the leadership group weren’t out there.

Even so, with the disastrous conditioning program having utterly failed to the point where our most important players were limping off, and in a quarterfinal no less after being in the easiest pool, even then our first fifteen might have come unstuck. All that was required for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down were a few ostrich-criteria backline selections, a piece of Freddy Michalak brilliance and a referee out of his depth.

Tournaments are like that. Graham Henry said it himself a hundred times.

The All Blacks’ fabulous test record between Cups counted for nothing. England in the final… there’s proof, if ever you needed it, that exhaustive preparation and pre-tournament form count for nothing.

We’re now hearing that players, in a relaxed mood at a sponsors event in Edinburgh during pool play, were saying “if we all do our jobs right, the score will take care of itself.”

So whose job was it to worry about the score? “All doing our jobs” sounds right, but then why didn’t they? I want to look at fear as the reason… the baggage… and not necessarily theirs, ours.

As The Man in the Stand has been saying for months, born to rule breeds vulnerability.

The Man was railing right through the Tri-Nations, questioning everyone’s Hare Krishna-like devotion to the rotation program, saying we’d all drunk the Kool-Aid. It was epic stuff for which he was actually threatened.

Now we can see that scepticism was healthier than blind acceptance, so let’s look more closely.

We absolutely must not let the referee become a trench to dive into.

Wayne Barnes made some awfully strange calls, or non-calls, but they were the sort of tight-game decisions that get made when pressure is placed on decision-makers. He and Jonathan Kaplan either weren’t sighted or looked away for a split second, maybe to count the other players arriving from various angles at what Barnes nervously worried was going to be a breakdown, and Michalak galloped like a Time Bandit through the ripped cosmic curtain.

These things happen. In those blinks of the eye when the universe folds over on itself, French things happen. Centuries of European politics and warfare have given the French a knack for accomplishing missions undetected… just like living on the Dark Continent with a small breeding population has given South Africans a survivalist mentality.

Paddy O’Brien was way out of line telling us to grow up… we may need to, sure, but coming from him it was offensive. The French being whistled off the park the following week against England was a horrible irony.

Meanwhile the howls of protest accusing Barnes and his touch judges are long and plaintive, but I’ve heard the same people in the past calling for less touch judge interference.

For New Zealanders to accuse Barnes of bias or corruption is senseless. What, didn’t he realise the All Blacks were supposed to win? Any bias he might have had was accidental, having been brought up in England listening to cocky New Zealanders’ taunts about boring rugby. A South Africa versus England final? The mortgage just expired on our say-so about what is or is not boring.

It is time for our arrogance to end. It is time to stop expecting victory from the All Blacks like that right is God-given, time for us to stop feeling sick after losses. You think you feel sick? Picture someone unstable feeling the same way (and believe me they’re out there, I try to write this column in a style that excludes them, but every week I am accused of treachery by the rabid and the unhinged).

The tournament comes here in 2011 and this nation is in grave danger. Not just of New Zealand not being ready, much more immediate than that. If England wins this tournament and some nutcase Kiwi fan living in London is found hanged wearing his All Blacks scarf, it will be plastered all over the Fleet Street rags and we will be a laughing stock… every Knightsbridge yuppie, reading his morning paper after dropping little Chloe and Tarquin off at kindy, is going to snigger at the tragic colonials for decades.

Already there are some damning statistics about a spike in women requiring refuge on Sunday October the seventh. That is sickening enough.

The weight of expectation and our insular world view are one and the same thing. Look at New Zealand in general… our dropping education standards, once-clean beaches strewn with rubbish, fatcat councils unable to delegate responsibility while immigrants gratefully fill a slew of vacant menial positions, gangs and car thieves poisoning whole suburbs… we are throwing away paradise. When it comes to appreciating what we have we are lazy, stupid, violent and dishonest.

Likewise when it comes to the All Blacks… we criticise drunk from our armchairs, most of us displaying a lack of high level experience, and we put our wives in battered women shelters after losses while pretending that sort of thing doesn’t happen.

We make them fear losses. The fear of losing is not a good motivation, no matter what former All Black captains are almost forced to tell us. It’s a powerful motivation, sure, but counterproductive. Fear puts enormous pressure on people in tight situations. We actually give ourselves stage fright sometimes with the incessant solemnity, and the bigger the stage the bigger the fright.

Some will want them to change style and play a different way, but I’m not worried about that. I submit that however they play the stage fright will be real if we need them to win too badly.

Henry won’t want the job again. I’m definitely for appointing Steve Hansen as head coach anyway, the man who fixed our forward pack. I certainly don’t need heads to roll after they’ve won three Tri-Nations, four Bledisloes, a Grand Slam and swept the Lions.

What I wish for the All Blacks, a team with the greatest winning record in world sports history but currently unable to shake off this fictitious cloak of failure, is a real ability to play the beautiful rugby they usually play no matter where, when or how big the game… or not, that’s up to them, but without the fear, really believing in it and damn whether they win or not.

Then it will happen. It’s what they’re being told to do as individuals. Our collective fear stops them doing it as a team.
Sod Holy Grails. In other words play for yourselves, boys, and don’t worry about us. We’ll love you anyway.

You do your job, we’ll do ours… and it’s our job to make sure that unfinished stadia, grotty little power failures, airport strandings of dignitaries and collapsing bridges don’t ruin the 2011 tournament.

Whether we win it or not? Ha. Some things are more important. The All Blacks are our best, but the gap between their proud record and this
nation’s in general is growing.

Got that New Zealand? Pull your lucky socks up.

Until next week,
Inky remains at your service.

http://www.backend.co.nz/inky

Virtually catatonic, much reduced and clearly in denial on Sunday morning, I found my way as quickly as possible to the shoreline where I duly bathed myself in fish blood. Normally I wash my hands in the salty water between guttings and rebaitings, but on Sunday I didn’t, I coated my rod, reel, clothes and skin dark red.

The All Blacks had just lost 18-20 to the French in Cardiff, blowing a 13-0 lead. Luke McAlister had been put through a yawning gap after a superb delayed pass by Dan Carter, and with the timely support of Jerry Collins had scored a sensational try, but after half-time the youngster was sitting on the sideline taking a ten minute spell while the game changed.

The French exploited their numerical advantage and flanker Thierry Dusatoir levelled the scores. Rodney So’oialo drove over to regain the lead but McAlister’s almost first act upon returning was to miss the conversion. Carter and Collins by this stage had limped off along with Byron Kelleher, Anton Oliver and Keith Robinson.

While New Zealand’s power diminished, the French Bench had them going from strength to strength. First came Sebastian Chabal then Frederic Michalak. With every All Black that limped off and fire-breathing Gaul that ran on, the pendulum kept swinging France’s way. Michalak’s first touch was to collect a forward pass from Damian Traille, gallop through the blindside hole where Collins would have been and give Yannick Jauzion a clear path to the line, setting off wild scenes of celebration and the horns of about five million Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens all over France.

It had actually happened, I wasn’t dreaming it. Every frame of the eighty minutes was burned indelibly into my memory, and while harvesting fish I relived each increasingly horrible moment from haka to post-match press conference with a giddy sort of clarity. Only now had it all become clear, the nightmare, the random fears I had been trying for years to enunciate, the nightmare of us never winning a World Cup again (and the All Blacks remaining in our own apathetic, arrogant, bum-scratching antipodean minds the greatest sports team of all time, but a team because its fans are so arrogant that is still never given the proper respect… while our haka keeps demanding it, a reminder to our opponents’ supporters of all their tragic, smug Kiwi workmates in the days leading up to test matches…)

We’re going to do it again and again, and it’s going to be embarrassing. New Zealanders will talk about being shanghai’ed until we’re blue in the face, about being made to play two weeks running in away strips that more closely resembled the opposition than the black jerseys would have, how it was a giant northern hemisphere ambush, how it was ludicrous that four European referees could be appointed to control four quarterfinals… some will even be arrogant enough to suggest Wayne Barnes could not strictly be considered neutral once England had knocked out Australia… like he would automatically choose the hosts over the favourites.

And yes, Barnes was atrocious. He will not be handed control of any more fixtures in this tournament. His litany of errors and poor judgement have earned him a special place in the long list of referees that cost us test matches, another pint in the footbath of blame for New Zealanders to dip their accusing feet in.

But bad refereeing only matters in tight games. Officials feel the same pressure the players do, at the same times, and (arrogance alert) if we had played as well as we know we can we wouldn’t have been worrying about his bad calls. Time and again during that second half we placed ourselves in his hands, after forty whole minutes demonstrating he was clearly out of his depth.

What went wrong? What took us to that point where we had our heads so far up our own primary canals we actually chose the wrong haka?

On the face of it, Graham Henry took what he and most of us believed was the best prepared All Blacks team of all time to France. They were rested, relaxed, raring to go, couldn’t wait for the business end of the tournament to start. They’d fashioned a ninety percent win-loss record over four seasons, and the bookmakers had them at the sort of vicious odds that even Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter would have balked at.

Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad nickname for this team, in the spirit of the 1905 Originals and the 1924-25 Invincibles… the 2007 Unbackables.

Anyway, step right up through the looking glass.

We played our best fullback at centre again. We took a mid-tournament holiday AGAIN. Smithy’s rotating backline had absolutely no cohesion when it counted. Totally key members of the conditioned twenty-two fell apart in a quarterfinal, after being in the easiest pool.

There was more to this than the referee.

I love these guys. I believed them about rotation and conditioning when they laid it all out and explained it in language I could understand. It all made such perfect sense, really quite seductive sense, and the victory-upon-victory monotony of the march hypnotised me.

But this was the World Cup, a tournament. They actually told us that too, but we wrote it off as some kind of modesty… respect for the opposition and all that, when it was so much more. Robbie Deans put it well in The Herald when he said you simply cannot prepare for everything such a touranment might throw at you. The giant psychological hijack didn’t need to be as thorough as it was, even, just the bad referee would probably have been enough. David Kirk’s piece in The Telegraph was equally arresting, about the difference between gods and men and the fitness of mortals for Herculean tasks.

Henry’s only mistake, probably, was falling in love with his team. He began his tenure as the most ruthless of selectors, but when it came time to make the hardest calls he couldn’t remember his own criteria. He picked Dan Carter with a bad leg and Keith Robinson lacking match fitness. Doug Howlett was in roaring form, form good enough to axe Rico Gear on the strength of, but Henry’s preference on the wing was suddenly for the two non-specialist greyhound cousins. Mils Muliaina was put in at centre again after only irregular outings in that position (including Rustenburg, where admittedly he was brilliant but in an All Black loss nonetheless).

People will see these things differently, but I’m going to call it as I see it.

Leon MacDonald could hardly kick past the halfway line from inside his twenty-two. Muliaina couldn’t distribute because the ball never got to him without a Frenchman two feet behind it.

Don’t even get me started on McAlister. In the middle of the most important game of his life and having had a blinder in the first half, he suddenly became the biggest kid in the sandpit again.

Pop kicks over the top of a French backline, with time ticking away and New Zealand behind on the scoreboard? Dropkicks from halfway when the All Blacks had been laying siege to the French goal-line only minutes before? Colliding with an attacker when defending his own tryline? Missing a conversion that would have forced extra time?

I’m glad that’s the last time we’ll see him in a grey jersey.

Byron Kelleher, running back and looking up over his shoulder, not once but twice collided with MacDonald who was coming forward to meet a high ball. Every crucial ruck from which ball needed to be moved quickly, Kelleher seemed to be buried at the bottom of.

As I say, people will see this differently… some will say Kelleher’s passing was crisp and his darts always made it over the gain line, but it was uncanny how he was never there to clear whenever we finally had their defences stretched. Byron’s a nice guy, but not smart enough to shoulder such responsibilities.

Our forwards were terrific, the unbelievable second half penalty count against them notwithstanding. Ali Williams and Jerry Collins in particular were magnificent… Williams with no less than three steals at lineout time, Collins with his link work and the massive physical toll he took on the French.

For their part the French were tremendous. They took every inch that Barnes gave them and just kept coming. Their momentum increased inexorably in a long sequence of hugely crucial, game-turning moments… Lionel Beauxis getting them on the board just before the break, McAlister’s clumsy yellow card, Sebastian Chabal coming on, the All Blacks’ backline general Carter going off, the previously indestructible Collins going off, Frederic Michalak coming on… oh God, Michalak…

Thinking of Michalak’s smile while throwing yet another kahawai’s innards to the seagulls, I laughed. There was no echo because only the wet horizon was in front of me. It was a spooky sound, representing arcane thoughts maybe only the fish constantly suiciding on my hook understood.

There on the shore, red to the elbows and looking like an extra from Evil Dead, I realised I was comfortable with the concept of forever. Obviously delirium had something to do with it, but the laughter had come spontaneously. It broke the spell.

Much as we dreaded this, in a way by doing so we got ourselves used to the idea. We were embarrassed in 1999, had the other cheek slapped in 2003, and from now on all slaps will just be mint on the lamb of embarrassment, the shock of the old as Will Self once said.

It wasn’t even the All Blacks’ fault. As our representatives we should accept the responsibility for them. They went in with an eighty percent winning record and leave the tournament still widely regarded as the world’s most feared rugby opponents. We can’t even say they didn’t deserve a little gold cup.

It’s we who did not deserve this. We do it to them. Our reliance on them for a vicarious sense of worth is too big a burden. We placed them on this pedestal (for pretty sound reasons considering they were winning every trophy in sight), and by sheer weight of steadily coagulating national pressure we almost forced Henry to love his boys. But now they’ve failed it is our duty to catch our countrymen as they fall from the lofty heights we placed them at. They need our love more than ever. The vast majority of them played terrific rugby, and the ones that didn’t were only just underpowered for such mental contests.

The only cure, as I said in my final paragraph last week, will come from cultivating the correct attitude to winning and losing. Even if we think we’ve finally learned this lesson we will probably still do it to them again in 2011.

The primary concern for this country now should be not royally screwing up the 2011 tournament itself… not terminally shaming this nation with some low rent, totally preventable, vulgar little glitch that will have us sniggered at for decades.

The kneejerk is coming, I can feel a giant cruciate ligament flexing. Some will say it’s time for Warren Gatland to become coach, some will plump for Deans. Some will cry for a return to the days of rugby as a fifteen-man game of attrition. Some will say the All Blacks should go back to being a squad of twenty-two and playing every game until injured.

Some will say it’s time for Dan Carter to let his body hair grow back.

I say we should suck in our collective gut and take a good long look at ourselves. Twenty-two men losing a game of rugby is far less significant than four million people gnashing their teeth over it like it’s freaking Darfur.

And you All Blacks, you can lose a game of rugby on my behalf anytime, even (gulp) if it’s every four years like a metronome. If you didn’t lose occasionally we wouldn’t bother watching. Just keep playing the way you do, like you love it too much, like speed freaks… canyon jumpers, going a hundred miles an hour and overshooting the ramp when ninety would have carried the day.

I’ll be right there with you, laughing, and the canyon at least will echo.

Until next week,
Inky remains at your service.

p.s. with the World Cup 2011 in mind, check out http://www.newzealand.com/frontrowrugbyclub/

http://www.backend.co.nz/inky

By the end of July, people, I was on the ragged edge. I say this now somewhat lightheartedly, but I was as close to being institutionalised as I have ever been. Pressure was building around me on all sides. Everywhere I looked made me furious.

Every extra yard some mismanaged roadworks made me travel, every time an outlet didn’t restock my brand or size, every sweaty parking warden you’d never see on a wet day… every syllable-chewing Australian newsreader, every curb-hopping, non-indicating driver, every lazy shopgirl, every balding honky alone behind the wheel of his suburban Panzer… every employee who couldn’t come to work, not because they were sick but because their constant diet of chocolate and KFC meant their stomachs couldn’t handle ibuprofen and come to work a bit sick like bloody everyone else…

Who the hell are you and what have you done with my planet?

No matter where I turned, I felt like an axe-murderer. I was seething with rage and disgust. I was the bile stuck in Joe’s throat, a textbook case of galloping intolerance. George and Osama would have been proud of me.

Then an event too close to home for comfort… well, home if the truth be told… showed me it was only a matter of time before I was incarcerated for an act of violence. I was a classic near burnout.

So I took the proxy advice of Graham Henry and undertook a conditioning program. That involved resting for the last six weeks. I’d apologise except that would be like assuming you cared.

Now the World Cup has finally begun, the All Blacks have kicked off their campaign with a 76-14 win over Italy, and suddenly I have a perspective overdose.

Henry is a genius.

The win wasn’t perfect. Leading by 43-0 after thirty minutes it sure looked like it was going to be, but then a little bit of creative South African touch-judging (Mark Lawrence got Carl Hayman sin-binned for punching) and the required reshuffling of personnel meant the rhythm was lost.

The All Blacks still ran in eleven tries past a gallant Italian team who mixed it up admirably. Doug Howlett got a well-taken hat-trick, putting him on equal footing with the great Christian Cullen for the All Black Test try-scoring record. Sitiveni Sivivatu got two as well and Mils Muliaina one, meaning that three-quarters scored more than half the All Blacks’ tries, which is as good a sign as any of a well-functioning team.

But captain Richie McCaw also scored two and so did Jerry Collins, the blindside flankers’ coming back-to-back inside sixty seconds. This also helped illustrate exactly where the All Blacks’ superiority lies, in greater mobility and continuity. Chris Jack and Ali Williams combined neatly to create the other, and that showed clearly that it’s not just our loose forwards who are more mobile and skilled.

It remains to be seen if our edge continues as the teams we face get harder and harder, but the signs were certainly there.

Keith Robinson’s latest niggling injury is the All Black camp’s number one concern right now. Gambling on including only three specialist locks, New Zealand cannot rely on its two aces Jack and Williams playing eighty minutes each for the next six weeks.

Grant Fox once said Robinson was “a liability at test level”. Having seen him perform well every time he’s been fit, I didn’t know what he meant until now… five years after his first Test, and currently averaging three games on the sideline out of every four.

A Rugby News article two years back said Robinson’s back injury was in all likelihood a career-ending one. I brought this up recently with an expert, who agreed that the giant’s overfrequent leg reinjury rate was consistent with someone ignoring a more serious underlying spinal problem.

Who knows, they may have to send him home and replace him with Troy Flavell… watch this space. Apart from this, I am comfortable with the team situation.

In other news it was fitting that the discipline of the Bernard Laporte-coached French team collapsed in the opening game. I imagine right about now he is looking everywhere but internally to explain the 12-17 loss to Argentina, and if his track record is any guide he’ll be saving a special barrage for the referee.

But they were beaten by a better side, who played with the patience the French had so obviously mislaid. Marcello Loffreda’s Argentine team were as tight as the French were frivolous. They threw no overambitious passes and simply concentrated on their core tasks.

 Over the last few years Laporte’s example to his team has been to blame everyone other than themselves for losses while making much of wins against feeble opposition. By doing so he has almost fatally eroded the French esprit de corps.

If he winds up facing the All Blacks in a Cardiff quarterfinal, or if he fails to make the quarterfinals at all, and his (surprisingly long) career ends in ignominy, he won’t have too many people sympathising.

The Argentines were superb and they can go on from here to make a serious run at the title. Only the unpredictable Irish now stand between them and finishing top of their pool.

It’s an interesting three-way race in that group. The Welsh-Australian and English-South African battles are no more clear-cut, but at least those four teams can be confident of a quarterfinal at least. The other intriguing match-up is between Italy and Scotland for second place in the All Blacks’ pool. Right now I’m inclined to think Italy are good enough to knock the Scots off, especially seeing as it’s scheduled for Saint Etienne and not Murrayfield.

Meanwhile in a dark French nightclub, the All Blacks are plucking up the courage to go over and talk to Destiny, a funny-looking older girl with smudged make-up and a hypnotic stare.

The New Zealand public will not be satisfied with second place. They are hard judges when it comes to rugby, and sympathy will be in short supply for those justifying next best. As an old friend once said to me, sheepishly downplaying his shiny new watch, “it’s a Seiko.”

Whichever make other than Swiss he had said, the meaning was the same. Likewise, who cares where the William Webb Ellis Trophy goes in October if it isn’t here?

Mind you, the watch I am wearing then won’t matter either, seeing as time will have lost its meaning.

Until next week, Inky remains at your service.

By Inky

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The monster steering the Australian sporting psyche is a two-headed beast.

One head makes Aussies the hardest-to-kill vermin on the sporting landscape, with an admirably dogged resilience that puts them right in the hunt for every trophy they care about. In fact sport is ALL they care about and pretty much all they’re good at. On their day, toughest sportsmen on the planet. The other head, the other side of the same coin, makes them very bad losers.

A few weeks back I excused the All Blacks for their late collapse at the Melbourne Cricket Ground because they had travelled the toughest sporting itinerary I know of with only a six day turnaround. I also felt it fair to point out that they were stomping Australia’s guts out for over an hour before their legs finally gave way beneath them.

And O, weren’t the howls of protest from across the ditch plaintive and shrill? Give us a break they said, stop whingeing like a Pom and keep your internally-oxidised billabong water out of Graham Henry’s pocket.

Now, after the All Blacks have served the Wallabies their own organs on a plate with a ruthless display on the teeming wet Eden Park, with only one exception the best my Australian subscribers have to offer is a contention that the All Blacks’ substitute halfback was offside when he intercepted a pass off the back of the scrum, and that a high tackle by their captain on wing Doug Howlett was harshly punished. Only one concession that the better team had won and a terrifyingly funny litany of complaints otherwise about the officialdom.

The smart replies are the New Zealanders happy with what they saw (even some New Zealanders aren’t, but that’s the New Hard… the 2007 version of a four-yearly manifestation).

The current Australian correspondence, meanwhile, is to be treasured for its irony.

Good on you. Believe in your players, I love it. But here’s my reply, in the form of questions referring to the obvious… and they’re pretty much what every New Zealander you work with will politely ask you, Digger, if you air any too-heartfelt grievances.

No mention of the fact that the Wallaby captain had gotten away with an earlier high hit on the other All Black winger, or that he was foolish to put himself in the referee’s hands with such a suspect technique anyway? No mention of the readability of the pass Brendon Leonard intercepted, or the fact that the Wallaby scrum was back-pedalling at the time like a Democratic presidential candidate who voted yes to invade Iraq?

Nor, most importantly, any sign yet in the Wallabies that the lesson is being learned about how rugby starts up front… and that they will only ever beat the All Blacks with the help of suspect officials themselves if they persist in selecting props who twist and snap as easily as fencing wire protecting the neighbour’s livestock?

This hiding began at the opening whistle and slowly intensified over eighty minutes. By the time the All Blacks had parked themselves in position for the coup de grace they had bloodied a few Wallabies’ noses and worn down their resistance with steady self-assurance.

They had correctly planned to play what was in front of them, and rightly assessed the Wallabies as being vulnerable in the collision area. Spiro Zavos (a New Zealander resident in Sydney and the writer Inky regards as his Obi Wan Kanobe) puts it matter-of-factly in his brilliant new book Watching the Rugby World Cup when he says “weakness in the hard-shoulder contact situations seems to have affected the confidence of the Wallabies”.

Even Howlett (who is not seen as the most muscular of footballers and is often made fun of because he fends like he’s trying to keep a bee out of his hair) made a couple of clattering hits himself over the course of the game and contributed to the relentless softening of Australian resolve.

The opening scrum provided a hilarious moment when the All Black pack did not push, allowing the Wallabies a big shove and clean front foot ball for the first time against New Zealand all year. It was calculated and very shrewd. Every murderous eight-man demolition by the All Blacks from then on was a blatant statement of strength to the Wallaby pack and more importantly a direct implication that they were being toyed with.

The All Blacks stayed in the right part of the field from that point and showed no fear of revealing their World Cup knockout blueprint. They had been roundly criticised for being too cavalier against weak opposition… not being ruthless enough for the jittery New Zealand public, whose thirst for the perfect entertaining game of rugby is just as strong as its desire to finally gain redemption from past tournaments when that search for perfection proved fruitless.

The All Blacks took a hard physical toll on the Wallabies at the breakdown so that the impact they desired off the bench was twice as effective. Seven converted penalties to four was about as telling a statistic as any in the game, and indicative of the up-front battle’s outcome. Even more telling was the fact that the game’s only try was scored by Tony Woodcock, wearing the sport’s lowest number on his jersey, who burrowed over from a pick-and-go at the corner flag.

No risky passes in midfield allowed luck to enter the equation. No man offloaded when the ground or any other agent threatened to jolt his elbow. It was a slow and steady grind in filthy wet conditions, with tackling, kick-chasing and tight five commitment more important than free-running enterprise. The lineouts were shaky in the flooded first half but corrected themselves in the second, and Dan Carter banged over almost every shot at goal he attempted.

You want Pretty? Those days are over, get out the November tape of the All Blacks in Lyons… or, as the desk clerk in A Fistfull Of Travellers Cheques said to his (Australian?) guest, “You want soft toilet paper, go to Hotel Gayboy.”

The 12-26 loss leaves Australia in a bad position. Anything they try from here on in by way of correcting their vulnerability to an expansive New Zealand, Irish or French game increases their risk against the more conservative opponents. Better to be South Africa even, having been beaten just as soundly points-wise but at least not having been worn like hood ornaments on Carl Hayman and Tony Woodcock’s tractor. Not everyone has props of that calibre, but the All Blacks still showed every other second tier team in the World Cup exactly how to play the Wallabies and have them exhausted just making the semis.

A front row is all-important, the best backs in the world mean nothing without ball going forward. That’s a battle Rugby has with League in Australia, being where most of the young Rodzillas go to play and lose their baby fat.

The officials didn’t cost Australia this test, you Wallaby supporters, and I think the Wallabies themselves know it. The only way back from a reckoning of this sort is honest admission of fault and earnest searching for means of repair, and even then the 2007 World Cup looms too soon. Stand by your team, sure, but certainly denial and braggadocio will be of no use this close to the tournament.