- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia's Quade Cooper kicks midfield in front of Daniel Carter during the Investec Tri Nations rugby match between Australia Wallabies and New Zealand All Blacks for the Bledisloe Cup at Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday August 6 2011. (AAP Images/NZPA, Stephen Barker).
An attractive blonde held up a sign at the All Blacks vs Pumas match that caught the attention of the television cameras: “Dan, I can fix up your groin.”
At a dinner party on Tuesday night, when we were discussing the fact that Colin Slade had been withdrawn from the squad with a similar injury to that of Carter, a witty guest remarked: “That girl now has two groins to fix up now!”
The newspapers in New Zealand are highlighting the fact that there has been a huge ‘body count’ of injuries suffered by the All Blacks during RWC 2011. There’s been Kieran Read (ankle), Dan Carter (groin), Richie McCaw (foot and lower back problems, probably, as well), Mils Muliaina (shoulder) and Colin Slade (groin).
Read is back playing but he was a shadow of the player he has been in the past.
He missed a crucial tackle from a scrum that lead to the Pumas try which gave them a short-lived lead. You can be certain that Robbie Deans will have David Pocock and Will Genia attacking this weakness in the All Blacks close quarters defence around scrums.
This weakness is intensified by the obvious effect McCaw’s injuries are having on his play. He is still playing well. But he is no longer the totally dominating loose forward he was in his glory days.
The injury to Carter has shifted the odds on the All Blacks from obvious favourites (think of his tremendous game he played against France and how effectively he led the All Blacks to a totally convincing victory) to a team that must be rated along with the Wallabies and Wales as equal favourites to win the tournament.
The problem for the All Blacks with the loss of Carter was not only did they lose one of rugby’s great players, but they then had to make do with a back-up who was selected for his ability to play in three back-line positions, rather than for his total excellence as a number 10.
The theory was that Carter would play most of the matches in the tournament, so a player who could supplement the reserves bench (Slade) was a better fit for the team than a player (Aaron Cruden) who was probably a better number 10.
Robbie Deans has done the same thing with David Pocock, with the Wallabies not carrying, initially, anyone who could be regarded as a natural number 7.
Getting back to the All Blacks, Cruden can only play number 10.
So when Carter got injured, the All Blacks initially had to play Slade. He handled the game against Canada reasonably well. He was, again, alright in his 33 minutes against the Pumas. But in both games he made mistakes, especially with kicks being charged down and making some poor passes.
It was obvious when Cruden played out the last 47 minutes of the quarter-final that Cruden was more comfortable with the ball in hand than Slade. The All Blacks scored both their tries with him on the field.
He also converted a try from the sideline.
A friend, who is an All Blacks supporter, emailed me after the quarter-final to the effect that Cruden had out-played Slade so effectively that he looked as if he might back up effectively but never fill Carter’s position as the New Zealand number 10.
“But only if Henry is smart enough to pick him ahead of Slade,” I emailed him.
This morning, when the news of Slade leaving the All Blacks because of his groin injury came through, he emailed me his reply: “I have called in the hand of God to solve Henry’s problem.”
The Wallabies, too, have suffered more injuries than usual in this RWC tournament.
Wycliff Palu has gone home. He never really recovered, I would guess, from his knee problems suffered throughout the season.
Kurtley Beale has a hamstring problem and it was a worrying sight for Wallaby supporters to see him limping from the field towards the end of the match against the Springboks.
Pat McCabe, who dislocated a shoulder earlier in the tournment, has a bruised shoulder. Sekope Kepu has a problem with an ankle.
Why are the All Blacks and the Wallabies having these injury problems?
To begin with, the defence at this tournament has been immense. The hits have been savage and attritional. Sir Clive Woodward says that some of these collisions have the impact of a car crash.
No wonder players are getting injured.
For the All Blacks and the Wallabies there is also the factor that there was just not enough time between the end of the Tri-Nations and the start of RWC 2011. The SANZAR countries had about a month break to refresh and get their RWC tournament campaign into shape.
Meanwhile, the northern hemisphere countries had a couple of months break.
Wales, for instance, had enough time to go to Poland and be subjected to a special fitness regime that used ice techniques and so on to get the players up to RWC fitness requirements. They then played a couple of warm-up matches before coming down to New Zealand.
With this regime, Wales has gone through the tournament looking like a super-fit side. And they don’t seem to be suffering from any subsantial injury concerns.
This could be a crucial factor for Wales as the finals play themselves out, and their putative opponents are going down like skittles in a bowling alley.
These injuries being suffered by the All Blacks and the Wallabies are another argument for shifting the starting dates of the RWC tournament back to its former time of October/November rather than the September/October dates used in RWC 2007 and RWC 2011.
I suppose that there is some comfort in all of this for the Wallabies and the All Blacks in that the Springboks were able to win the RWC 2007 tournament, even though it was played in the unhelpful time frame of the September/October schedule.
