The All Blacks are so good they made a greatest teams list twice

This is going to open all sorts of can of worms it comes down to whoever is making the list depicts what teams make the list. It is the same through the world you can never decide whose better, Ali or Tyson, Bradman or Tendulkar, Messi or Pele, Nicklaus or Woods, Federer or Laver. All are exceptional athletes in there own right and in there own era. To make it clearer so there are no misunderstandings, the franchise has to play a global sport in a team against the best home and away period. With regards to that the only team that ticks the boxes are the NZ Al Blacks since 1889......

The 1986-89 all blacks should not have been there. They won a World Cup, yes, but it was at home and against opposition in various stages of amateurism. And South Africa, probably the strongest team of that era, were not involved. Rod macqueen's wallabies should habe been. I guess he found Wayne Shelford more interesting than John eales. And he was. But still...

Losing a hard fought game is not choking. I would say 2003 and 1999 were the two chokes, possibly 1991 but that was before my time and that particular team may have been a bit old. 2007 the French came to play but would they have won if the foreward pass was called as it should have been? Obviously we can't say either way but under the circumstances I wouldn't consider 2007 a choke.

Can't tell if your joking or not.

Because basketball is not a top tier sport in any/many other countries besides America. If the US basketball team was an NBA team and they dominated for years then it would be comparable.

The current All Blacks team are not chokers, but if people want to look at teams over the whole of their history, 5 consecutive world cups without a title, when the All Blacks were one of the top favourites. Only 4 teams have won rugby world cups. South Africa on the other hand, were never as heavy priced favourites as the All Blacks were, they have been at decent odds many times and failed , whereas Pakistan, Australia,India have picked up world cups when they were outsiders in less favourable conditions. It owuld be interesting to compare SOuth Africa and England, SOuth Africa have failed 7 times, whereas England have failed 11 times but England haven;t been as good odds as SOuth Africa on average. On the side of the ledger England have won a T20 world cup and SOuth Africa haven't. So if you add T20 then South Africa are the chokers of cricket, The other extreme is the USa basketball team. They always have a team that makes the difference between Golden State Warriors and the worst team in the NBA look small to the rest of their opposition. They do pick better teams for the Olympics than world championships. The 2004 might have been their worst team chosen for the olympics but it was still chock block of many of the best NBA players. So only one choke for a medal and multiple failures at world championship does that compare to not winning anything like South Africa, or 5 consecutive misses like the All Blacks,.

No mention of the US men's basketball team? 15 gold medals from 18 Olympics. America dominates basketball like new zealand does rugby, perhaps more so, and basketball is a mainstream sport.

Thanks TM. A couple of points though: the standard of competition for the 90's era Bulls was significantly higher than the standard of the AB's current global competitors. The sorry state of the Wallabies and Springboks over the last couple of seasons has been singularly woeful. And you haven't even played the 2nd ranked team in the world since Eddie has taken the reigns. Though in fairness, I didn't mean this as a shot at the current AB side in any way - more so a comment on quantity and quality. Maintaining the same level of effort and quality over 6 x more games would be very difficult for a whole host of reasons. Also, regular season win/loss records are also fairly moot as the NBA championship isn´t won in the regular season. Topping your division holds far more emphasis to teams than trying to win every game in the year. Over an 82 game stretch, personnel and effort is managed with a view to finals. The NBA home & away (best of 5-7) finals series is almost incomparable in rugby. Actually winning the Championship in 2 runs of 3 - and in concert with the entry / exit of the best basketballer to ever lace up a pair of Nike - is pretty phenomenal.

They have won the last two world cups so how could they be considered chokers? The SA cricket team hasn't won even one. The only real choke was 2007. I don't consider 1999 a choke as it's really hard to stop the French in that mood. The other loses were simply because they were up against better teams. Contrary to popular belief, the ABs are not the best team in the world every single year.

conversely the all blacks choked in 5 successive world cups 1991 to 2007

Rhino, here we go again mate, but I never ever thought Spiro was anti South African as he is in fact a New Zealander born and bred but whether you choose to believe his writings in general to be untrue as you say, is up to you but Kiwis traditionally have wonderful raphor with the boys and girls of South Africa, ~ I don't know about the Poms though that's a different matter. The Australian Rugby Union tried to organise a set up whereby a Competition between New Zealand and Australia played each other and bypass the Sanzaar and the Super Rugby Comp', but the NZRU were very emphatic that they would never abandon South African Rugby, so that was the end of that!

Rhino, there's always been heaps of Maori players in the Test teams out of New Zealand, always was and still is, but the New Zealand Government of those particular times were complicit in fact of bowing down to the South African demand of ''no coloured players allowed'' thereby there were some brilliant players left out of tours to South Africa because they were of Kiwi Maori descent. When the Boks toured New Zealand they had no choice but to 'play by the rules' and it's well documented once again of different unsavoury episodes that took place. Like when they were scheduled to play the New Zealand Maori Team when on tour they turned their backs when they did the Haka prior to the game,~ and there was an Official complaint from whoever in the SARU of the disgraceful carrying on of 'white folk cheering on coloured folk' during a game! But yep' Rhino there's always been a good representation available to play of Maori players in All Blacks side, whether they were allowed to play is another matter!

Yes I realise that but we are still being asked to accept that losing up to 20 games a seasons is somehow an astounding effort of sporting achievement on a global scale. I mean at the current rate the ABs would take 15 seasons to lose that many, not one.

Rhino' ~ Say what you want to believe mate but it's damn difficult to argue against the truth of the matter which in this case we're talking about here is very well documented and because of that, I don't need to fill you in on all things Springbok/All Back rugby in the what you may call the ''bad old days'' of rugby of the time. I was around during the 1949 tour to South Africa and I was around when every other Tour of New Zealand took place and attended quite a few games to boot seeing the rest in black and white since 1956 when TV had just become available. Far be it for me to make bad friends over rugby issues from the past as I like to think those episodes if you like are now thank goodness, dead and buried and dragging them up time and again achieves nothing really. As I said there's an absolute plethora of records of rugby Tours and otherwise between the Boks and the AllBlacks some good and some eye opening. If you don't wish to believe what I mentioned in my original post on the ethics etc of the game prior to the end of Apartheid, that's entirely your privilege mate, but a good exercise would be to just duck down to the Library and suss it out for yourself! Another good read is to just Google up the "McLook Rugby Collection'' ~ rugby between the All Blacks and the Springboks, it's the best of the best on this matter! ~ eye opening stuff in there! There's heaps of different happenings good and bad and it's all there for anyone to see but in saying that, it's whether you choose to believe it or not! I will say though ''I remember all the happenings from 1949 and 1956 extremely well and I have to say, "I wouldn't have missed it for quids" Cheers mate and ''Carn the All Blacks this arvo''

One can't go past the Thabazimbi Jukskei Club or Cambridge Tiddly Winks clubs as consistent performers in their respective sports.

.......& therein lies the problem with Union. There is NZ isolated in their dominance - and then there is the rest of the world, where the real competition exists.

The Allblacks shall top the list lest not forget who they play here You kidding me!

All Blacks have played SA 93 times Won by ABs 55 Won by SA 35. The Boks have fallen away in recent years but they've always been up the top throughout history and no doubt they'll be back with vengeance. Last years results between the two countries was unusual if you compared it with tradition... But they still have the best results against the ABs compared to any other nation so that'll always earn respect from NZ. SA currently ranked 5th, but going by history that wont last long and they'll be right back up the top.... Hopefully soon.

George Nepia, Johnny Smith - are two names that i would think off the top of my head but I'm not that into Rugby. But as an idea - look at the Maori AB side that played the Lions and that gives you an idea as to how strong Maori Rugby is in NZ and further - consider that players of their status were excluded. Should highlight however that it does go the other way as well - Consider if the 87 AB's and 91 Wallabies are really worthy WC Champions when SA was excluded from the comp!

Bring back Buck!!