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‘Time’s wing-ed chariot’ and ‘tempus fugit’ and all that, but it does seem only a moment ago that I was sitting in the broiling sun at the Velodrome at Marseille and watched, horrified, as Stirling Mortlock missed a penalty into a swirling wind near full-time that would have snatched a victory in the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final for the Wallabies against England.
The four years for rugby tragics have passed quickly.
The Wallabies have a New Zealand coach, Robbie Deans, with an unimpressive (on paper) Test winning record in the mid-50s per cent.
The team though has moved from number 5 in the world rankings in 2008 to number 2 now. And in their last two Tests before the RWC tournament starts the Wallabies have defeated the Springboks in South Africa and the All Blacks at Brisbane.
Nick Farr-Jones says that the Brisbane victory was the Wallabies’ best in the last ten years. Certainly, it is hard to see how the Wallabies can play better than they did in the first 40 minutes of that Test.
But Farr-Jones also stated before the Wallabies played the All Blacks at Auckland, earlier in the Tri-Nations tournament, that if the Wallabies could not win at this fortress of New Zealand rugby (the All Blacks last loss at Eden Park was in 1994), then they couldn’t expect to defeat the All Blacks if they contest the final, as the draw suggests they should.
The old Greek scribe will make two points here which he believes sum up the fascination and trepidation a Rugby World Cup tournament creates.
First, as Martin Johnson – England’s hard-nosed coach – points out, the only predictable thing about RWC tournaments is that they produce unpredictable outcomes. Hands up those of you who were prepared to put the house mortgage on the Springboks winning RWC 2007?
Second, what could be called the Zavos Principle is that Rugby World Cups are won by teams that are Toyotas rather than Ferraris.
Once again Martin Johnson has something interesting to say on this matter: “Resilience rather than style is the key to World Cup success,” he opines. “World Cups are all about pressure, dealing with it off the field and obviously on the field when you get into a close game in the last 10 minutes.”
The strongly-constructed Toyota teams, in my opinion, cope with the inevitable speed bumps better than the flashy, more fragile Ferrari teams.
And this is right.
The only Ferrari team to win a RWC tournament was the 1987 All Blacks. They were ‘helped’ by some terrific refereeing from the late and deeply lamented Queensland referee, Kerry Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was fit, young and an enthusiast of the running game. He was rightly severe on the negative northern hemisphere style of playing rugby.
If Fitzgerald had not succumbed to cancer after 1987 and if he had refereed and set the standard for the other referees that followed him, the All Blacks and the Wallabies probably would have won a couple more World Cups between them.
Instead of the open rugby encouraged by Fitzgerald, the rest of the RWC tournaments have been dominated by referees officiating in a nit-picking, penalty-obsessed way (except for Wayne Barnes at Cardiff in the France-New Zealand quarter final in 2007), showing antagonism to open rugby so beloved by southern hemisphere referees. The result was the most boring final in RWC 2007.
The IRB has promised that there will not be a repeat of the 2007 final.
But some of us cynics have noticed a tendency in recent Tests for the Fitzgerald model to be dropped in favour of the northern hemisphere style. For my part, I promise to keep a fearless eye on the referees.
On Sunday four more teams flew into New Zealand for the tournament.
The Argentineans were given as splendid civic reception at the ornate Dunedin Town Hall. Ireland was given a great reception at the holiday resort of Queenstown. The USA squad was welcomed at the Whanganui Putiki Marea. The Welsh received a similar rousing welcome at the Takapuwhaia Marae (meeting ground) at Porirua, a suburb to the north of Wellington.
It is clear already from these welcomes and from those teams which arrived earlier in week like France, Japan, Italy (at Nelson hundreds of people cheered the team with ‘Benevenuti’), England and Samoa that New Zealanders have embraced the true concept of the World Cup, which is that it is a festival and celebration of rugby, at least during the pool rounds.
Someone asked me during the week when would an Island side make a real challenge for winning the tournament.
This question took me back to the day after the Wallabies defeat in RWC 2007 to the Fiji-South Africa quarter final at Marseille. Fiji scored 20 unanswered points towards the end of the match.
A Fijian forward (pity it wasn’t a back) dived across the line to score the winning try and was turned on his back by J.P.Pietersen in one of the most important tackles in RWC history.
So an Island team was almost up for bigger things in a RWC tournament.
But this time I think the potential giant killer could be Samoa. Several thousand supporters greeted the team at Auckland airport with chants of ‘We Love Samoa’ and ‘Manu (Warrior) Samoa’.
There are probably more Samoans, or people who identify as Samoans in New Zealand than there are back in Samoa. Samoa, too, has a fine record in RWC tournaments, with the defeat of Wales at Cardiff in 1991 being a highlight.
And take note of this.
No fewer than 15 of the Samoan team were born and bred in New Zealand, like their outstanding captain Seilala Mapusa. Samoa is in reality New Zealand B (or A, if they win the RWC tournament).
With the team stacked with New Zealanders (Paul Williams the outstanding fullback is the son of the legendary All Black and current president of the NZRU, Bryan Williams) and with a huge local support, Samoa is the second home team in the tournament, along with the All Blacks.
If Samoa plays to its seedings, it plays the Wallabies in a quarter-final. After the thrashing dished out to the Wallabies at Sydney by Samoa, this could be a difficult match.
Or perhaps not. The beauty of the Rugby World Cup tournament is that predictions like this are easy to make but are often proved to be wrong in fact.
So on Friday night, it all begins with New Zealand playing Tonga in the capital of Polynesia, Auckland.
Before the match begins the rugby world will be enthralled with the Tongans challenging the All Blacks haka with their own war dance. And then it is, for 48 matches, on for young and old.
Hold on tight everyone for an unpredictable and brilliant 2011 RWC tournament.
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Ed’s note: The Roar has compiled a full TV guide for the Rugby World Cup, showing what games are televised by Channel 9.