Aaron Smith leads the haka on Saturday night. Photo / photosport.nz
Aaron Smith leads the haka on Saturday night. Photo / photosport.nz
OPINION:
With only nine weeks to go before the World Cup kicks off, every coach in the international game will insist they are focused only on themselves at this juncture and driven by a need to get their own house in order before they worry about anyone else.
But it’simpossible not to believe that the two countries who have dominated this World Cup cycle to date, France and Ireland, have been paying considerable attention to the events in the Southern Hemisphere these past two weeks and hastily reevaluated how they feel about the prospect of meeting the All Blacks at this year’s tournament.
England, South Africa, Scotland and Australia will all have done much the same thing and felt just a little pang of dread that the All Blacks’ empire is no longer crumbling and instead may be about to strike back in the most dramatic fashion.
No one outside of New Zealand would be so bold as to admit that they have enjoyed seeing the All Blacks in relative turmoil these last few years: that they liked the rugby world better when the black beast was slumbering and somewhat defanged.
And equally, given the need for the serious contenders to project a show of strength in these coming weeks and build the narrative around themselves, no one is going to admit that they might now just be a little bit terrified that the All Blacks are seemingly timing their run perfectly and hitting peak form precisely when they need to be.
They could find a few things with which to console themselves – the All Blacks coughed up two scrum penalties; they conceded a rolling maul try and for a 15-minute period early in the second half South Africa’s bomb squad were finding ways to clamber all over the breakdown and be unduly disruptive.
But on balance, it would be irresponsible bordering on delusional for the World Cup big boys not to have deduced from the All Blacks’ 35-20 defeat of the Springboks, that there is a new and deadly predator roaming in their midst.
What will have alarm bells ringing everywhere is the speed, accuracy, and crunch with which the All Blacks played in the opening 20 minutes.
It was a deadly onslaught that alluded to the depth of confidence and clarity which exists within the All Blacks, but more pertinently, it was the first irrefutable proof that Ian Foster’s team now have the means to play their preferred fast tempo game against even the most destructive and suffocating defensive teams.
“Part of it is getting the head right,” reckoned Foster in explaining why this transition has been able to happen.
“Getting the desire to play, to express yourself and to have that attack focus. That has been the big shift and that has encouraged us to release the ball a little more and then of course it is having the skill-set to do it.
“It has been a slow seep. We have always been a team that want to play, but you have got to get your big rocks right – and I use those words a lot – but it has taken us a while, the last couple of years to adjust to the physicality, particularly the forwards, that has come from the North.
“And having the variety of opposition that different teams test you in different ways, we have gathered a lot of information.
Finishing on a high was encouraging for the All Blacks. Photo / photosport.nz
“Some of it has been painful, but I think we are learning about it and now we are starting to see a non-negotiable level through our set-piece and the physical side of the game.
“And that is enabling us to win some collisions, which is enabling to get over the top of people and in some ways it is a simple game.”
Perhaps, though, the greater cause for global concern was the way in which the All Blacks found a way to recover from a shaky period midway through the second half and to land two sucker punches with tries to Will Jordan and Richie Mo’unga.
Being able to close games after building an early lead was something the All Blacks struggled to do last year, and that they managed to regroup at Mt Smart, defuse the bomb squad and retake control of the game, was further evidence of this team having the necessary belief in themselves and the required mental strength to problem solve and fix issues in real time.
Or more bluntly, they are not prone to mental absenteeism as they once were, and they know how to keep their heads in the game.
Every serious World Cup contender would have likely imagined an All Blacks recovery of some kind was probable in 2023.
But the scale of the revival that has been hinted at these last two tests, was perhaps beyond the scope of anyone’s imagination and the All Blacks’ opening 20 minutes at Mt Smart will loom large in the thinking of all the other serious World Cup contenders during these next nine weeks.
