Editorial: Mimicking rivals trying to play ABs at their own game

Beauden Barrett of the All Blacks breaks the tackle of Leigh Halfpenny of Wales. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Originality only way to maintain world domination.

As another international rugby season comes to an end, attention focuses inevitably on a World Cup that is now just 10 months away. Central to any thinking in this country is the prospect of the All Blacks becoming the first team able to call themselves back-to-back world champions. That none of the winners of the seven tournaments to date have been able to achieve this underlines the enormous nature of the task. So, too, does a 2014 season that suggests the dominance which the All Blacks established before and after their 2011 triumph at Eden Park has ebbed significantly.

Those were halcyon years. Almost without exception, opponents were comfortably beaten. On the evidence of this year's matches, we have reverted to the normal long-term trend which sees the All Blacks winning most of their matches but not by substantial margins in terms of either points or conviction. Their mental resolve and superior fitness have carried them to victory on all occasions except one, the away loss to South Africa, but the strong impression is that the gap between them and their major opponents has become slender.

This might have been expected. The way a team as successful as the All Blacks plays is always going to invite intense scrutiny. That analysis is now done to the nth degree by opposition teams. The result is tactics and strategies that have eaten away at the All Blacks' strengths or teams that pay the ultimate compliment by seeking to imitate the way they play.

This process has gathered pace with the recruitment of New Zealand coaches in the Northern Hemisphere - Warren Gatland in Wales, Joe Schmidt in Ireland and Vern Cotter in Scotland. Grounded in the New Zealand way of doing things, they have made their respective countries more difficult to defeat. England, which with Wales hosts next year's World Cup, has gone along the same path by trying to do things the All Black way.

This may, as

Herald

rugby writer Gregor Paul has lamented, have led to a loss of these teams' individuality. But aping success happens in any sport. Most football teams aspire to play like Brazil or, if their feet are more firmly on the ground, Germany. And the Northern Hemisphere teams' exchange of an essentially 10-man game for a more entertaining style is no bad thing for attracting new fans to rugby. Especially when this has been achieved while they have become more daunting propositions.

The All Black coach, Steve Hansen, knows his team must continue to be innovative if they are to become the first to win the World Cup on three occasions - and the first All Black side to win it away from home. They cannot continue to do the same things. Those have been thoroughly analysed and counters, some effective, some not so much so, devised.

On the evidence of many of the All Blacks' games this year, the process of innovation has not proceeded with any great smoothness. On many occasions, they have lacked organisation and cohesion. Too often, bad passes have been thrown, including to players who clearly did not expect to receive the ball. The tour to the Northern Hemisphere also indicated that player depth in some positions was not as strong as believed.

The fortunes of World Cup-winning teams customarily slump after their triumph. The All Blacks, to their enormous credit, did not allow this to happen. Their fans have been spoilt during their years of dominance. Now, however, everything points to a significant closing of the gap. A very competitive World Cup looms.