Ireland’s Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony. Photo / Photosport
Ireland’s Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
What’s become undeniable on the eve of Super Rugby Pacific 2023 kicking off is that rugby in this part of the world has never looked so obviously to be the poor relation.
If it wasn’t apparent already, it should be now, that New Zealand has lost its place asthe epicentre of rugby innovation, and that the Southern Hemisphere is no longer the majority owner of the world’s rugby intellect.
Given the All Blacks’ results of the last few years and the collection of unwanted records they have accumulated, this hardly constitutes a shock-horror revelation.
The tectonic plates have been shifting since 2020. Something clicked in the North about then and while it has been apparent for a few years that the best sides up there are better than the best sides down here, maybe no one realised by how much until last weekend.
France and Ireland played out a Six Nations encounter of such intensity and quality as to signal that the gap between them and everyone else is dangerously close to being unbridgeable between now and the World Cup.
Every part of the contest in Dublin illustrated the enormity of the task facing the All Blacks in 2023 if they are to win the World Cup.
The pace of the game was frenetic and relentless and so the All Blacks have lost what used to be their trump card — superior conditioning.
The game was fast because both sides were mostly accurate — their respective pass and catch and ball recycling performed to the sort of standards which New Zealand couldn’t sustain in 2022.
And it was a game where both sides made ample linebreaks as they came into the contest on the back of deeply considered strategic plans that their respective players were good enough to instinctively adapt to suit their needs.
Ireland’s Garry Ringrose scores a try against France. Photo / Photosport
By the final whistle, two conclusions could be reached: this is Ireland’s World Cup to lose and that the All Blacks, based on what they delivered last year, don’t have the variety and precision in their attack game to live with either of these two Six Nations heavyweights.
This is World Cup year and standard practice is to label the All Blacks favourites, or one of.
But not this year, as to do so would be to blindly ignore that neither Ireland nor France would face the All Blacks with the usual trepidation and fear that has marked their previous clashes.
Ireland have already shown that beating the All Blacks is no longer their Everest.
They came to New Zealand last July and dominated the three-test series, playing physically intense and creative rugby that served as a nostalgic tribute to the great All Blacks sides of the past.
In the six months since they were here, they have gathered momentum by adding yet more to their game and if Ireland were to be asked whether they would rather face New Zealand or France in the quarter-final later this year, they would pick the All Blacks.
The question which, therefore, must be front of mind ahead of Super Rugby kicking off — is how can New Zealand instil fear in the rest of the world and convince everyone, by September, that the All Blacks are at the same level as Ireland and France?
And the answer lies on two distinct fronts. The All Blacks seem determined to head to France with a handful of veteran players at the core of their team and if this strategy of relying on experience is to work, the likes of Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane, Aaron Smith and Beauden Barrett have to be in the best form of their careers.
Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock. Photo / Photosport
When the All Blacks won in 2015, they did so with 30-something-year-olds throughout the team. Many critics doubted it was a winning plan before the tournament, but Jerome Kaino, Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith were all brilliant in England.
Five world-class, in-form veterans won the tournament for the All Blacks in 2015 and certainly if the All Blacks of 2023 can turn up in France with their five world-class veterans in form, they will be a bigger threat than they were last year.
Getting the best out of the 30-somethings will be critical, but if the All Blacks are to start scaring teams again, then they also need to raise their skill-level across the board in Super Rugby: forwards need to rediscover the lost arts of passing pre-contact and off-loading in the tackle.
Backlines need to fix their alignment and running lines, finding ways to vary both.
And it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Crusaders and Blues to licence Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett to kick considerably more than they normally do when they are asked to do so by the All Blacks later in the year, it’s not such a slog to get them up to standard.
