Former Wallaby skipper John Eales has called open season on New Zealand’s fragile World Cup–psyche with comments in The Sydney Morning Herald aimed squarely at our dodgy tournament record.
“Time may move slowly for the All Blacks as they exist in the shadow of the World Cup – 24 hours a day, for the next 360 odd days,” he said earlier this week.
Subtle, ain’t he? Subtle like a two-metre lock.
There’s nothing new to these mind games. The Aussies generally start wading in about a year out from every World Cup. Somewhere in Sydney, someone flicks on the Klieg searchlight and projects a big Wallaby into the night sky, and then all hell breaks loose.
It starts with a deafening drone of wood on wood as ex-Wallabies vacate their rocking chairs all around the country and call into their local papers to opine on the prohibitive weight of expectation bearing down on the All Blacks.
Standby for Eales’s back-up singers to join the chorus at any moment. They are generally – in no particular order – Messrs Farr-Jones, Horan and Kearns. Old coaches such as Bob Dwyer and Eddie Jones usually do a spell on the microphone too.
But you have to admit that Eales is doing a bang-up job all on his own, at this stage. Take a gander at this…
“A key tenet of NZ’s pitch to host the tournament was that their nation is a stadium of four-million people,” Eales said, throwing the Kiwi’s propaganda back in their faces.
“That amounts to a lot of attention on this All Black squad. That pressure will build as the Cup nears and with an increasing weight of evidence that the Wallabies are capable of winning the Webb Ellis trophy.”
Of course the pressure card is only one half of the Aussie playbook. They usually also like to point out how the Kiwis have peaked between World Cups. That’s been a recurring fact over the years and probably explains why New Zealanders are appalled to have won 15 straight tests right now.
Could this world cup build-up get any worse? A clean sweep of the Tri Nations, 10 straight wins over the Wallabies and a genuine shot at a world record Test winning streak? I mean let’s pull the All Blacks out of this thing now to save ourselves the embarrassment.
But this time the peak might not be as miss-timed as usual. Generally when the All Blacks go berserk like this, they go on a two to two-and-a-half year binge. Their outstanding mid-90s teams dominated 1996 and 1997. Then Henry’s first world-beaters were peerless through 2005, 2006 and the wrong half of 2007.
Now he’s built another monster in his basement but so far this one’s only got one season on the clock. By the time we’ve gone another, the world cup will have been settled.
That won’t stop the ex-Wallaby brigade, though. Standby for the mind games to roll on.
kovana
Guest
4 more years mate.. 4 more years..
jameswm
Guest
Of course he does...
Who Needs Melon
Guest
Of course! The our hemisphere is better than your hemisphere thing. How could I forget that one.
zhenry
Guest
And any other angle they can think of. One other thing I omitted above in claiming back the positivity, claiming back NZ ownership of the media, and putting in place a competent public media.
Derm
Roar Guru
Jeez - you left out the biggest one of them all. POTNH
Derm
Roar Guru
You mean they'll fix it so that there won't be? Presumably that means Australia get fed the skippy hamburgers this time round - oh dear. ;)
Waity
Guest
Hey lads, here's two other tired old Roar subjects you forgot: - rugby - sport in general When will we ever broaden our horizons, huh?
zhenry
Guest
The NZ culture will always bring on a negative so that no matter how good NZ prove to be next time they will fail, instead of steering a positive course right through it all, no need to mention the negative. How often do you see this negative dynamic used by the Australian owned New Zealand media (esp rugby) and the WALs fraternity? Many times (of course Australia own its own media like any self respecting country should) and they like nothing better than belittling New Zealand any way they can. The NZ cultural negativity is something NZers need to work on but the media solution is more straight forward: When Mitchell was coach he banned the ABs from access to media. No need to go that far but the AB coaching staff need to be aware of the power of the media to create snow balling negative moods, to identify it and focus on what they need to do to win. No need to burden yourself with a negative snowball from within or from media. This WC will be quite vicious in that regard; it will be a combination of the ABs 'peaking', 'choking', 'ABs only Carter and McCaw' and being 'the best in the World'.
Derm
Roar Guru
Darwin - Who is the "your lot" that you're referring to? I was talking about New Zealand's opponents - is this who you regard as secondary distraction? Or what is the point you're trying to make?
Cliff (Bishkek)
Guest
I can hear the laughing "sorry choking" now - very similar to 1996 SA, 1999 Eng, 2003 Aus and 2007 France. Laughing is such a remedy - but crying aids choking Have a good day fellas - anything is possible at an RWC - but if the ABs do not win this one - THEN WHAT HAPPENS? Mass Kiwi depression. Cheers
ohtani's jacket
Guest
Probably because the people who do all the squarking have nothing to write home about. I liked Eales' columns. Nothing he writes needles me in the slightest. I don't know if he writes them himself but they're good articles. Especially when taken with a grain of salt. Eales is never going to publically state that the Walllaby forward pack is too soft, the backs too poor in defence and the coach impossible to understand, but he knows it.
jameswm
Guest
Me personally? If the toying doesn't work, why do you all bite (including you) every time the 5-letter c word is mentioned?
Ben S
Roar Guru
I think you're confusing New Zealand with the entire southern hemisphere, DS.
dunc
Guest
hahaha as a new zealander, i am ready for anything, a choke, we actually win it, france confounds everybody and wins it...australia might even string a few consistent wins together....can u believe this will happen...! i just want to say also i am in buenos aires, argentina, right now and the first billboard leaving the airport to the city is an IRB (and mastercard) Rugby World Cup 2011 ad.....
Mike
Guest
Such amazing confidence from the Wallaby camp. Just imagine the arrogance, hot air puffing and all round bullshit they'd be spouting if they'd ACTUALLY WON TWO GAMES IN A ROW or beaten the AB's in ONE of their last TEN games :p As for the RWC, some surprise QF matchups would really make it much more interesting. Who knows? Maybe Tonga gets through instead of France. There's also the intriguing (and real) possibility of Australia coming second in their pool round to Ireland - making it a SA/Oz quarterfinal. And also of France (again) beating the AB's in their pool to set up an Argentina/NZ quarterfinal.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
The chances of a New Zealand/Australia final are awfully slim considering the IRB's interests. I doubt they want an all South Hemisphere final in a SH time zone.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
Too bad you're about as useless at toying with us as you are at beating us at rugby.
tiwana
Guest
the only choking we will be doing, is when we are laughing so hard when Ireland beat aus in thier pool play
Stash
Guest
The only reason that Australia and other nations start peddling the propaganda is that they are genuinely fearful of New Zealand winning this (as they are each tournament). If there was no fear, there would be little point playing the psi-op war. None of the top five nations like to see one of the higher teams get too much ahead of the pack. If it was Australia that had 10 up on New Zealand - then NZ would also be employing the same tactics. (see I'm even doing it myself)
Stash
Guest
Nice One WNM also - Its the cattle not the coaches - Its not our first team - injuries - and IRB conspiracies