All Blacks v Argentina: David Kirk on journey to Rugby World Cup final

Rugby World Cup-winning All Blacks captain David Kirk on which side will turn up to the semifinal clash with Argentina.

OPINION

These All Blacks have, in recent years, been maddeningly inconsistent. Aggression and precision followed by languor and slackness. Sharpness by dimwittedness, rigour by laxity.

We, the supporters, are understandably concerned that after a marvellous performance in the quarter-final against the No 1-ranked team in the world, we might be in for a bout of bumbling this weekend against middle-ranked Argentina.

It is technically physically possible for the team to play as well against Argentina as they did against Ireland, but it is not mentally possible for them to do so. There is no way the All Blacks can be as focused, scared, desperate and willing to smash through walls to win this week as they were last week. There are two reasons for this.

First, no team can sustain the sort of mental intensity they needed to win against the best team in the world for two weeks in a row. Only one team has ever beaten the All Blacks in the knockout stages of the Rugby World Cup and gone on to win the next game. (That team was a very good Wallabies side in 1991, who struggled to a 12-6 win against England in the final.)

Second, the circumstances do not require the team to mentally go where they went against Ireland. Last week, the All Blacks did not know if they were good enough to beat Ireland. They had lost three of the past four head-to-head encounters with the Irish and had been beaten by France five weeks earlier. They had to find something in themselves, and they did not know if it existed. These are the circumstances that produce the best from every player. Not so for the match against Argentina. The All Blacks know they are good enough to beat Argentina, even if they don’t play their best rugby.

So, how can we have some confidence that, notwithstanding the impossibility of playing with the same mental intensity as last week, the All Blacks will play well and win well? To answer this question, we need to move from the little box of preparation that is one match and consider the journey the players have been on - and are still on - and what that means for this match.

Let’s divide the players into three groups: one, those players who, through retirement, a move overseas or age will not play another World Cup; two, young players, playing their first World Cup and, barring injury, very likely to play at least one more World Cup. The third group sit between these two. This may be their first or second World Cup, they may not be first-team starters, they may or may not stay in New Zealand for another four years; whatever the reason, they themselves do not know if they will play another World Cup. The fact is some will, and some won’t.

Every career, every life, is a journey of accumulating achievements, some big and some small along the way to what we would all like to think of, at the end, as a life well-lived. For every player who plays international rugby for New Zealand, at the end, a life well-lived means winning the Rugby World Cup.

David Kirk captained the All Blacks when they won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987.

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