Chris Rattue: All Blacks cannot expect world domination

Hey sports fans. What was your favourite moment from 2004?

In a perverse kind of way, mine was watching the Auckland City Council tie itself in knots over the V8 Supercar race.

The result - the banning of the race in Auckland - was hardly a shining moment in the history of this city, although hardly surprising in a place that has had trouble keeping the electricity and water supply going in recent times.

The Supercar debacle was however a marvellous lesson in how to go to great lengths to not get something done. It comes a close second to the fine work this country managed in finding out how not to be part of a World Cup rugby tournament.

Presumably on the basis that the more "independent commissioners" you appoint the more problems you will find, the city leaders appointed three who discovered the car race would cause traffic jams, noise and community problems.

That's one major problem per commissioner - a decent average. Frankly, I'm still getting over the shock of finding out that a car race causes noise. If they'd only bothered to appoint another commissioner, they would also have discovered that spectators cause litter.

Given all of this, we should be very thankful that next year's Lions rugby tour is still on because there is a grave danger that it will cause traffic jams, noise and have an impact on the community, not to mention the litter problem.

It is a long time since a sporting event has been as eagerly anticipated in this country.

Lions teams have often been greeted with some affection but there is no danger of that next year, given that Lord Woodward will be in charge, memories of this year's bad tempered English tour will be revived, that World Cup revenge is in the air, and that the whole exercise has more the feeling of an invasion than a rugby tour.

Two landing forces are coming, the primary one being an elite group made up no doubt by those great old comrades - the English and Irish. They will mount their campaign under Commander Woodward in five-star luxury, and support staff galore. The non-English contenders will already be heartened by Woodward's repeated assertion that he may drag some of his old English stalwarts out of retirement for this expedition.

The secondary force will scout around the edges, handling forays into the provinces. It's an ugly job, but someone has to do it. This back-up mob will be identified by various factors, including the predominance of Welsh and Scottish troops, while it is viciously rumoured they may not get their own chef and if they do, he or she will have just one Michelin star. That's really slumming it.

Despite all the trimmings - including bringing a media officer who was just about running Tony Blair's Government - there is something old fashioned and comforting about the arrival of these Lions.

It represents what rugby used to be all about, and for which the game was all the better for, rather than the contrived Tri business we've been lumbered with every year.

There will also be something nice and un-contrived about the Lions' opening assignment, where they will will face a Bay of Plenty team that will have had just a handful of training runs and thus rely heavily on battle cries.

As the first game is just a week after the Super 12 finishes, and Bay of Plenty have a dozen players involved in that tournament, the Steamers will have no lead-up games in which to prepare.

If, as is a reasonable bet, the Crusaders make the Super 12 final, Bay of Plenty won't even get their coach Vern Cotter back until a week before the game. And the match is likely to thrust the unheralded fringe Auckland first five-eighths Murray Williams, signed by the Steamers as the replacement for Glen Jackson, into the limelight on his Bay of Plenty debut. It's the sort of preparation that can often work in the favour of an underdog.

As for this tour sorting out some sort of world rugby order however, I'm in a camp that believes such theories are a thing of the past. We are in a sporting era where supremacy is an increasingly fleeting thing. Enjoy your good moments, and don't get overwhelmed by the bad.

It was with some amusement that I watched English rugby writer Stephen Jones, who has become famous for his attacks on the New Zealand game, try to extricate himself following the brilliant All Blacks performance in Paris.

Quite clearly, Jones has made some fair points over the years about the effects of the Super 12 although he is about three decades late in uncovering glaring frailties in All Black forward power. What Jones has always had trouble grasping, or at least conveying, is that our game ain't all bad.

His response to the magnificent All Black forward effort in Paris was about as weak as the Golden Oldies French response to the onslaught from Anton Oliver and co at scrum time. Jones could not even muster a grudging respect for the All Black pack.

What emerged is that Jones takes himself and his iron cast theories extremely seriously, and will defend them until hell freezes over and certainly with no hint of self-deprecating humour. Jones' definition of a funny bone would be an All Black with a compound fracture.

What has emerged in world rugby, and virtually all sports, is that it's a dangerous game having any cast iron theories on who is mightier than who in ability or in the results column.

The days of dynasties are over (with maybe the very odd exception such as the brilliant Australian cricket team). The topsy turvy international rugby results of the past month are testament to that, and rugby is not alone.

It wasn't so long ago that Tiger Woods appeared to have so many points on the board that he could take a holiday for a couple of years and still be the world golfing No 1. However, an obsessive character named Vijay Singh wasn't prepared to float along in Tiger's fan club.

Arsenal ended Manchester United's reign in English football with a team of super players who appeared ready to rule for years.

Yet during the past month, an Arsenal team that went 40-plus games without defeat suffered their second loss of this season thanks to a brilliant last-gasp Liverpool goal, the climax to a magnificent match. It's early days yet, but Chelsea - a team whose fans used to be more famous than the players - may be launching a premiership takeover bid.

Then there is the case of the Williams sisters - especially Serena - who were the new super heroes of tennis, ungainly but unbeatable. Or so the theory went.

And wherever you look, it seems that the long reigns of freakish sporting talents such as snooker's Steve Davis and athletics' Edwin Moses are just that - things of the past. Highly detailed analysis, training methods, the distractions of modern life. They probably play a part in the modern trend of few trends.

That thrilling and resilient performance in Paris was among the greatest this punter can recall in All Black history, and in the past may have heralded a glorious era.

If there was a moment which shone through the maze of sporting incidents this year, it was the look of bemused triumph that appeared on Oliver's face - a craggy dial that can look like a handhold on a rock climbing wall - when France were unable to muster a competitive scrum.

It was a moment and match to savour. But who would really know whether it is an indication of All Black glories to come.