Cheika's All Black nightmare

Michael Cheika must be watching the Super Rugby unfold amidst a wave of black entering his mind – the All Blacks that is.

Cheika has a gentle entrance coming into the All Blacks this year with a home June Test series against Fiji, Scotland, and Italy setting himself up nicely for the All Blacks.

19 August the Wallabies play the All Blacks in Sydney. Spiro has often mentioned the aphorism of Sun Tzu: ‘The battle is won before it is fought.’ Cheika’s state of mind and philosophy will have a big bearing on this match.

Assuming Cheika can muster up a highly talented 15 from his five Super Rugby teams, and have a strong game plan, then we come to the mind and emotional battle.

Has Cheika learned from his mistakes of last year? Or is he still in victim mode? Perhaps too early to tell, though my intuitions says he hasn’t changed too much.

Last year he played the siege mentality. Implying the All Blacks thought they could just rock up and the game was won. The All Blacks had no respect for the Wallabies too, according to Cheika.

Cheika was trying to install passion and justice. And he was going to make justice prevail. The problem here was the All Blacks didn’t believe it. Steve Hansen stated it as such and said Cheika was trying to build a siege mentality, and the All Blacks do respect the Wallabies. The All Blacks have to; otherwise, they know they can be beaten by them.

The result that day in Sydney was 42-8 to the All Blacks. Cheika lost the war even before the match had started. Cheika was going too deep into the mind, which can often be the illusion. When you match that against a team that plays with heart and simplicity then you’ll be in for a bit of trouble.

The Sydney Test set up Cheika’s mentality for the following match at Eden Park: I would call it rage. More passion, more mind, a bit of heart but mainly niggle. The niggle can upset the All Blacks for a small period but it can later be a weakness as we discovered when Dane Haylett-Petty got pulled up for his off-ball discretion.

Cheika was unable to see clearly what happened there. The rage overwhelmed him. It’s difficult to make astute decisions if you can’t see the essence of what is happening.

Cheika’s attitude was ego and in a reactive fight mode, so the aftermath can amplify this position and continue the pattern when dealing with the unwanted result – and it did, as we all saw.

Instead of congratulating the All Blacks, he blamed everyone else and tried to take away the All Blacks’ glory. In doing so, Cheika fuelled the fire for the All Blacks and took away any complacency they may have for later.

Part of the reason for Cheika to defend himself is due to the ego wanting to be right at all costs. He lost the match so the ego needs to be right and defends, and arises with another angle so it can survive and be correct.

When I look at Ritchie McCaw I see all Zen qualities. He plays it from the heart with a clear mind. He doesn’t fight but he shows his power. He shows action from the heart, not a reaction from the mind. He’s in sync with what is really happening and has a high sense of the simple details but also the intuition of the game. Cheika could learn from this.

Cheika will have his time again to see how he fairs with the All Blacks. I stated last year that he will never beat the All Blacks again unless he changes his mentality.

Quite simply he’s playing the victim. A victim blames everyone else for their problems. The opposite is the survivor. A survivor takes responsibility and applies action, and not reaction as the victim does.

On bigger matters, when someone goes through a traumatic experience they usually fall into these two categories of survivor and victim mode, and they have two completely different outcomes.

Cheika’s patterns are entrenched. The battle seems lost before it has begun. The All Black nightmare will show itself later this year and will reveal whether he’s learned and evolved or remains caged to the victim of his own ego.

I’m predicting unconsciously Cheika will still play the victim, and after the Sydney Test when they lose, it will be his fully conscious state – and it will show in his persona.

That is the forecast, but we all have the power to make it change.