All Black captain Kieran Read with fans. Photo / Photosport
COMMENT:
It was said of the 1991 All Blacks that they marched into Dublin for their World Cup semifinal against Australia with all the gaiety of grave diggers and yet seemed surprised that every local man, woman and dog cheered the house down for the Wallabies.
The All Blacks have always been an easy team for the neutral to admire but they haven't always been easy to like and they certainly weren't always self-aware enough in the past to realise that their single-mindedness was readily interpreted as arrogance.
Back in the golden, pre-internet age of long tours, the Celts, or at least the Scots and Irish forged a niche for themselves as happy-go-lucky sorts competing to be everybody's second favourite team, while the All Blacks were cast in an altogether less flattering light as the unsmiling giants of Middle Earth who were about as much fun as a root canal.
Plenty of All Blacks teams haven't cared that the rest of the rugby world hasn't loved them. They haven't seen test football as a popularity contest and have turned up wherever they have been sent to win games and not friends.
But the 2015 World Cup-winning team did care how they were viewed and they travelled to England with a desire not just to win, but to capture hearts and minds of non New Zealanders.
They wanted to bury the romper stomper image of their distant past and their openness and generosity of spirit was the untold story of the last tournament.
They were a team who ended up being liked as much as they were respected and the way they conducted themselves off the field unquestionably benefited the way they played on it.
From the moment they arrived in England, there was a genuine desire to embrace everything they encountered. There was a commitment to smile, enjoy and maybe force a change of perception.
The All Blacks went old school in 2015 – they had time for everyone, honoured the almost forgotten traditions and refused to embark on a glum-faced, stoic march to the final.
They wanted to win but they wanted to win in a particular way – to be seen as not just good players, but good men.
The cash-strapped Namibia were invited into the All Blacks changing room after their pool game and pretty much told to help themselves to as much All Blacks kit as they could carry.
Georgia weren't sure the world champions would have any time for them after their game, so were blown away to still be in the sheds a few beers later, with everyone having captured their treasure – a selfie with Dan Carter and Richie McCaw.
When they played Tonga, Jerome Kaino led a group of All Blacks to join in a post-match prayer with the opposition. At the same time, Sonny Bill stood on the sidelines, juggling Tongan players' children as if it was a Sunday picnic.
An open training in Darlington saw 4000 local kids turn up and leave with a definite sense that the All Blacks may be ruthless rugby players but they can also be endearingly goofy with the ability to not take themselves seriously.
Beauden Barrett gave semifinal tickets to a hairdresser who had fallen into ill health but whose Kiwi husband was desperate to go and Ma'a Nonu, having seen a sports memorabilia hunter stand fruitlessly outside the team's Dockland's hotel for days, peeled off the T-shirt he was wearing to give to him and walked through the lobby bare-chested.
There were endless stories of All Blacks doing good deeds in England during that World Cup and unlike the semifinal in Dublin 24 years earlier, the vast majority of neutrals would have been on New Zealand's side come the final.
That fact alone didn't win the World Cup for the All Blacks, but it made life easier for them. It made things better for them.
It's a human condition to want to be liked and a common sense assumption that the 2015 All Blacks had a level of contentment and comfort about who they were and how they were perceived and it ended up making a difference to how they played.
"I don't think it is driven by being liked," All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said before the semifinal against South Africa.
"It is driven by that's how we want to live. That's the identity we believe the legacy of the All Blacks has demanded from us. It is really important to us that we live that way - that identity and those values all the time."
Four years on and the All Blacks haven't lost sight of the need to be sure of their identity and the importance of it.
They still want to be good people, win friends and be liked, but they didn't have public relations on their agenda in Perth, and perhaps missed an opportunity because of it.
The city would have liked for the All Blacks to have emulated Manchester United and Chelsea who both held open training days when they recently played at Optus Stadium.
The All Blacks unquestionably treasure the Bledisloe Cup and see that the best way to honour its history is to prepare on their terms so they can unleash all they have got on match night.
But while their dedication to the high performance cause is impressively beyond question, it does feel that they could have lifted the bunker mentality for just long enough to have done some meet and greet with the locals and helped generate interest for a contest and indeed a sport that is in danger of sinking without trace on this side of the Tasman.
The Bledisloe Cup needs help to stay relevant in Australia and while the All Blacks can't do anything to help the Wallabies on the field, they could do a little more off it and a few thousand kids going home from an open training, still gawping at the size of Sam Whitelock, would have done untold good in bolstering interest in the game.
Presumably they won't miss any similar opportunities when they get to Japan.
Presumably they will strike that same balance of being cold and clinical on the field but accessible and warm off it because that is who they want to be.
And to win the World Cup they need to know who they are in every sense.
Fabien Galthie has picked a second-choice squad for July's NZ Tests.