Phil Gifford: The one quality the All Blacks need to reach their electric best

Executing their skills under pressure is vital for the All Blacks. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

Public pressure demands the All Blacks don't just win, but win in style. It's the biggest issue facing the 2022 team.

Safety first, basically boring your opponents to defeat, hasn't been acceptable to Kiwis since Graham Henry took his second chance as coach in 2008.

The problem is that to play at test level the high-wire, running and gunning style that predominates in our Super Rugby requires extraordinary degrees of accuracy, which are always based on confidence.

"The first thing that goes when self-belief drops are your skill levels," undefeated All Black coach Sir Fred Allen once told me. "When a man's on top of his game he doesn't have to overthink, he just does it."

Confidence was the basis of the golden run of triumphs the All Blacks enjoyed in the 14 seasons from 2004, with two World Cup victories and 11 southern hemisphere championships.

At their peak the All Blacks of that era were so icily effective they made Tiger Woods at his imperious peak, lining up a putt to take a tournament, look like a sweaty, shaking sack of hopeless nerves.

The prime example? The 2013 test against Ireland. The All Blacks are down 22-17 with 16 seconds to go. They take a tap kick on their 10-metre mark. Almost two minutes of non-stop play, 10 recycles, 24 passes and 13 players handling without a mistake later, and Ryan Crotty scores a try. Aaron Cruden converts, and it's game over, 24-22 to New Zealand.

Their belief came from a historic, unbeaten season. But the base of unalloyed success isn't there anymore. Between the shock of England monstering them in Yokohama at the 2019 World Cup, through the chaos of Covid, to the defeat in Dunedin, the All Blacks have had to rely much more on their personal resources.

So it was nerve-wracking in Dunedin last Saturday to see the number of dropped passes, especially worrying considering the covered stadium made conditions perfect. The All Blacks aren't lacking technical abilities. The big issue is whether they can show their skills when under pressure.

There's also a reasoned case for a more conservative attitude.

There are astute rugby minds in the All Black camp, and while I'm one of a myriad of rugby followers who abhorred the way Australia in 1991, England in 2003 and South Africa in 2007 tediously ground their way to World Cup victories, right now it may be more important for the All Blacks to win ugly, playing a safer, more conservative style, than going down in a blaze of attempted attacking glory.

To help with self-belief, the All Blacks this week in Wellington will hope to have blocked out the venom that's been pouring down on them. If you took some of the criticism seriously it seems Foster and captain Sam Cane have wrecked the All Blacks, forced inflation up and somehow helped spike Covid numbers.

Because some become iconic household names, it can be easy to forget All Blacks are also human beings, who find it hard to resist the natural curiosity the rest of us would have about what people were saying about us.

In the 1990s I often struggled to keep a straight face when a leading All Black would swear to me he never listened to Murray Deaker's shows on Newstalk ZB, and then proceeded to run through a detailed list of what he considered were erroneous on-air statements Murray had made.

But if the squad have stayed offline, not listened to radio, or read a paper, and instead drawn tightly together, there's no reason they can't beat Ireland, a team good enough, let's not forget, to harry a terrific France team every inch of the way in their Six Nations clash in February.