The All Blacks line up for the anthems during The Rugby Championship Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australia Wallabies last year. Photo / Getty Images.
The All Blacks line up for the anthems during The Rugby Championship Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australia Wallabies last year. Photo / Getty Images.
COMMENT:
Ireland's rugby team have had their tyres pumped up a fair bit in the past few months. It has been "Ireland are all this ..., Ireland are all that ..." since they beat the All Blacks in November.
It was a stunning victory and one that far from beingrandom or in isolation, was the culmination of 18 months of solid progression.
The result in Dublin didn't change the world rankings but there's no doubt ahead of the Six Nations kicking off this week that Ireland are now universally acknowledged by their Northern Hemisphere rivals as the best team in the world.
Players and coaches from England, who begin their campaign in Dublin this weekend, have been quite fawning about Ireland.
The Irish have been tagged as the form horse with the smartest coach, the best-drilled players and the team setting the standards for all others.
Not to the same extent, there has been a parallel narrative running about the vulnerability of the All Blacks heading into World Cup year.
Typically, or at least in the last five years or so, the Six Nations has kicked off with multiple references to the fact that the real challenge isn't being crowned champions of Europe, but finding a way to close the gap on the All Blacks.
The All Blacks, despite their dominance in the past decade, are no longer viewed as the world's standard-bearing team.
Some New Zealanders may find that hard to stomach, but the All Blacks coaching group and players will be quite content with that state of affairs.
Ireland celebrate after beating the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
They will be even more content if Ireland emerge victorious in the Six Nations and if a little more air is pumped into their tyres.
What the All Blacks know better than anyone is that it's a lonely, vulnerable place being the world's No1 team.
There's nowhere to hide, no easy motivation to grasp, no inherent lever to pull in the way there is for those teams aiming to make the top.
The world looks different from the top down and the pressure of living up to expectation is different to that of trying to prove doubters wrong.
Ireland have only known the latter and it is not easy to make the mental transition from being underdog to favourite.
Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus talked about that last year — saying how much his young side struggled to back up their unexpected victory against the All Blacks in Wellington.
They were driven and focused in New Zealand, having been all but written off before the test at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.
But two weeks later in Pretoria, with the whole of South Africa expecting another win, the Springboks wobbled in the final 20 minutes and didn't cope well with the pressure of favouritism.
So, as far as the All Blacks are concerned, the more praise lavished on Ireland, the better.
The more they are built up, the better. The more the people of Ireland expect, the better.
Ireland can have their time in the public glare and find out for themselves that it is a relentlessly demanding and at times horribly unfair place to be.
A test against Scotland, for example, becomes a significantly harder challenge as the world's No1 team.
The Scots are good, tricky to beat and yet all of Ireland will be devastated should their team lose and spectacularly fail to appreciate what it takes to win a game like that.
And that's what hurts about being the best team — there is often no upside in victory, only shame and inquests to face if there is a defeat, and it takes time for players and coaches to make peace with that.
It takes time for a team to learn the art of driving themselves each week when they are expected to win.
The All Blacks have lived there for an age and they will gladly take a break from it in the lead-up to the World Cup and let Ireland have a taste of constantly having to satisfy a fan base that will only accept victory.
