“He is the Maradonna, the Pele of international rugby, all rolled into one. You cannot put a value on his importance to our game. He is a breath of fresh air and I think perhaps the greatest player of all time.”
Those were the words of former Irish five-eighth Tony Ward, describing the impact David Campese had in the 1991 World Cup semi-final.
Being the Campese aficionado I am, I recently went to some extreme lengths to acquire footage of that game, which I’ve watched over and over again.
What was my impression after watching the game?
Well, first and foremost the Australian forwards were incredible. They swamped the All Blacks at every breakdown. They swallowed any All Black who dared attempt to enter the breakdown, and they never stopped going forward.
Perhaps unforgotten was the comprehensive manner in which the Aussies were beaten in the line-out. The line-outs went the All Blacks way at halftime 16-6. Phil Kearn’s throwing left a bit to be desired at times.
Despite that, Australia should have been 20 plus points ahead of halftime.
But there were many missed penalties and conversions. Campese nearly created an overlap by sliding into the inside centre position and was about to release Egerton into space by occupying Kirwan, but Grant Fox was able to ankle-tap him.
And, of course, there was Campese’s two famous moments of brilliance.
But re-visiting history is always interesting because in the time in between an event and the time you re-visit that event, certain truths get accepted which frankly aren’t true.
What did I discover when watching this famous game?
John Kirwan was nothing short of incredible!
It’s been well documented that Campese scored his first try by angling across the field and turning Kirwan inside-out in the process. This try has reflected poorly upon Kirwan because people remember that try by Campese (where Kirwan was made to look silly) and not Kirwan’s gallant efforts.
Kirwan’s mistake was that he should have turned towards Campo to tackle him. Instead, he was worried about the man outside of him and by the time Campese had reached him, he had turned his back on him.
While this may have been a mistake, one could say that Phil Kearns and Roger Egerton were outside Campese anyway, and by the time Campo got to Kirwan a try would eventuate regardless of how Kirwan reacted.
Bruce Sheekly once said that the Campese Vs Kirwan rivalry was overemphasized because whoever came out on top was normally just a matter of whose team was playing better.
I think there’s some truth to that.
Take a look at Campese’s first try.
First and foremost, the ball is won cleanly at the back of the line-out, which I think is often the best place to win line-out ball.
It’s there that the halfback can take the ball and run himself, off-load to the five-eighth, or do a peel at the back of the line-out and using the forwards coming around.
Farr-Jones off-loaded to Lynagh who took the ball a tremendous distance past the advantage line. Bob Dwyer once estimated he ran as far as seven metres over the advantage line which a five-eighth should never be allowed to do.
Then look at the following ruck where Troy Coker flings his entire weight into the breakdown, ensuring the cleanest of clean ball for Nick Farr-Jones.
Farr-Jones’ pass to Campese was lightning quick and on the money.
The fact that Campese was quick enough to slot himself into the five-eighth position is incredible when you view the play in its entirety because the pace of the Aussie game was blistering.
Let’s juxtapose that with Campese’s reaction after losing the first Test to New Zealand in 1990.
Here are some comments from his autobiography On a Wing and a Prayer:
“I hardly saw the ball, and when I did I got clobbered … The All Blacks knew the ball would head out to me when it was shifted, and so whenever I got it they hammered me.”
It’s simply too much to ask a winger to win you the game without that special ‘go-forward’ being provided.
Or is it?
With the All Black forwards getting some possession in the second half of that famous semi-final (I’d argue it wasn’t the clean delivery the Aussie backs got in the first half), the All Black backs came into the game for the first time.
Their backline moves were boring and predictable and basically consisted of shifting the ball out to John Timu, hoping perhaps he could punch through a hole for his side.
Timu kept running into Campese and Campese kept putting him down.
Chris Handy noted in his commentary that: “Timu on the wing is running in at Campese to try and force him to tackle, thinking that there is a weakness there, but Campese hasn’t missed a beat today.”
John Timu was completely ineffective that day and the All Blacks then began to place an emphasis on John Kirwan to win them the game.
His efforts were remarkable.
There were a number of times when Kirwan slid in between Egerton and Little, which was no small feat given Jason Little’s defensive abilities.
At worst, he was given the ball without the New Zealand backs either getting it quickly or cleanly.
I saw instances where he received the ball many metres behind the advantage-line, and every time he got the ball over the advantage-line and beyond. A remarkable feat.
Gary Pierce in commentary mentioned that: “Their only option is to bring Kirwan in… and then they all hang off him waiting for him to do something.”
Pierce was wrong. There was nobody hanging off him. It wasn’t that Kirwan was running away from his support, more that the support wasn’t coming to him.
At one instance in the 59th minute Kirwan once again slid between Little and Egerton.
He did so with explosive pace and almost with a tiny in-and-away that beat Little comprehensively. Fortunately for Australia, Tim Horan and Willie Ofahengaue came across in cover to smash him.
What’s more surprising was the manner in which Kirwan was able to remain on his feet in the tackle for quite a while.
Yet the support didn’t come.
That may be the moment Bob Dwyer was referring to in his autobiography, The Winning Way, when he wrote that: “I thought Kirwan played wonderfully well. I could not count the number of times he broke through the first two tackles, but there were another two defenders on top of him. Surely you cannot expect anyone to beat four tackles.”
I saw Kirwan’s tremendous feats and questioned how he would have fared if he was in the situation Campese was in.
Campese’s first try was brilliant and surprising, but in any other circumstance, if he tried a diagonal run, he’d have been smashed by one of any All Black defenders. His try was simply impossible without the distance covered by Michael Lynagh, which forced the All Black defence to backtrack and reorganise themselves.
Campese himself seemed to understand what John Kirwan was going through because he does mention in the extended World Cup edition of On a Wing and a Prayer that: “I was disappointed by New Zealand, and I felt sorry for John Kirwan, because every move in the last 20 minutes was to him. It was left entirely to him to try to get them back into the game; no one else made any breaks.
“Afterwards he said that had happened to him before; his team-mates had just thrown the ball to him with the sort of expression that says, ‘do something’. That is tough.”
Having seen the second Bledisloe Test of 1988, a game in a series where it was well-documented that Kirwan got the better of Campese, I have to say I was more impressed by Kirwan in the 1991 semi-final.
Like Kirwan in 1991, Campo didn’t get a lot of opportunity to create in that 1988 game either.
Kirwan’s semi-final performance should have been remembered as one of the great rugby rear-guards of all-time. Like Shane Warne in the 2005 Ashes, his efforts weren’t quite enough, but the entertainment value of his desire to win was priceless.
I now carry a memory of Kirwan’s performance in that game as much I do Campese’s.
Oh and Campese defended brilliantly in that game. But history will never remember that.
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He was born 1905, 1904 or 1908 according to various reports, in Wairoa, Hawkes Bay, and is remembered as one of the great Māori players.
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