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Sydney is a happy hunting ground for the Wallabies in the Bledisloe Cup and this Saturday night is likely to be no exception.
After once again starting the season as Tri-Nations faves, the New Zealanders are suddenly faced with a fight to stay in the contest, having conceded a home game to the Springboks in Dunedin and now having to face a resurgent Wallabies outfit in Sydney, where they have won only three out of eight Bledisloe Tests at ANZ Stadium.
Also, for perhaps the first time ever, New Zealand supporters, particularly the South Island variety, are death riding the All Blacks, in the hope that a losing record for Graham Henry will eventually see Robbie Deans returned to the Shaky Isles as national coach.
Faltering support is not the only reason that the All Blacks are about to end up on the wrong side of the ledger this weekend.
Unbreakable captain Richie McCaw, normally about as injury-prone as the shape-shifting T-1000 in Terminator II, has also suddenly shown that he is human, with an ankle injury pulling him back from the brink of Test duty yet again.
McCaw is noted for his ability to play through pain, and for his quick-healing physique, so for him to be ruled out gives the most bulletproof of players in the All Black squad reason to pause.
McCaw’s bung ankle also forces Henry to fill the open side void with three-Test All Black Daniel Braid, which is a bit like replacing Michael Hutchence with JD Fortune.
Braid is also a relative lightweight – a mere 94kg to McCaw’s 106kg.
He faces off against a frighteningly in-form George Smith (the only real challenger to McCaw’s openside crown) who is two inches shorter, 4kg heavier and 84 Tests more experienced.
It could be a long night for the new man.
The Wallabies are not without their own new men, notably coach Robbie Deans and his rookies Burgess, Hynes, Cross, Horwill and Robinson. But it’s a different story across the ditch.
The Wallabies rookies are riding a wave of fresh air and innovative tactics, and when the underlying foundations change, it seems only natural that a few new players turn up too.
However, when the coach who took the team a quarter-final World Cup loss is still at the helm, and when several senior players depart for greener pastures and fat retirement cheques overseas, the new players have the look of LBJ’s Vietnam conscripts: proud and game, but just too outgunned and outjungled.
The New Zealanders may not admit it or talk about it, but the wounds of the 2007 World Cup loss to France are far from healed.
The Kiwis are still hurting, and the World Cup chokers tag now has an uncomfortable ring of truth to it. It has happened one too many times to be a fluke, and even the Haka looks uncomfortably theatrical, instead of the ferocious and brutal spectacle it once was.
New Zealand rugby, perhaps for the first time in its history, is really down.
The team is fractured and estranged from its coach. The coach they really wanted is about to oppose them with a team of almost totally unknown quantity who last week inexplicably beat the World Champions.
Their inspirational captain has been replaced by a lightweight rookie, after the replacement captain couldn’t cut it at openside. The 2007 World Cup is fresh in their minds, and the steadying influences in the likes of Collins, Umaga, Robinson, Jack, Thorn, Oliver, Mauger and Howlett are gone.
For the first time in ten years, they have lost a match to the Springboks at home, and could have easily lost two.
Their hope, perhaps their last and only, lies with the sublime, transcendent play of one Daniel William Carter.
In the current situation, Carter is the All Black equivalent of Moses, leading a bewildered people across a treacherous sea-bed whilst being pursued by a hostile army. But even he may not be able to stop the waters engulfing the once-were-warriors.
There is little upside for the All Blacks this weekend.
If they win, the supporters ululate and gnash their teeth at the tick in Henry’s win column. If they lose, it is another nail in the coffin of the fabled All Black Aura.
The Wallabies by 15.