The All Blacks have cultivated a team culture over the past century that makes Wallaby-like implosions unheard of. Photo / Getty Images
A Wallaby implosion - it's pretty much dog bites man. Bad luck, bad management, bad eggs ... all three have probably played a role in leading them to the brink of self-destruction.
The interesting part of their latest scandal is not what Kurtley Beale has revealed about Australian team culture, more what it has inadvertently highlighted in the All Blacks.
It was only three weeks ago that the All Blacks left for Argentina without Aaron Cruden. The first five was left behind for arriving late to the airport.
It's not quite on the same scale as Beale's lewd and humiliating texts to a member of management, yet the harshness of the punishment had potential to divide players from management.
Not a peep of dissent was heard, though. Not a hint of division was detectable within the All Blacks camp. If there were players who disagreed with the way Cruden was handled, they either kept it to themselves or quietly made their point to management and then let it die.
This has forever been the All Blacks way. Many a troubled soul has been in their midst. There have been plenty of wild-card personalities and recidivist offenders, coaches who haven't been widely popular and team-mates who wouldn't cross the road to say hello to each other and, yet, never has an All Black team gone boom in the same way as the Wallabies.
That's because the All Blacks never let indiscretions, personality clashes or loose canons blow their entire framework to smithereens.
Dirty laundry is never done in public, even in this age of tell-all biographies and social media. The lid has remained firmly on most All Black scandals.
Even now, we don't really know why Buck Shelford was dropped or how he felt about the way he was treated. The All Blacks went to the 1991 World Cup with co-coaches - Alex Wyllie and John Hart - who loathed each other and divided the team and, yet, they still managed to make the semifinals and keep the true extent of their feelings hidden.
There were dramas in 1998 around the leadership of Taine Randell and a lack of support for him from senior players.
Again, this only properly came to light 10 years later when a more serious issue with Robin Brooke, the man who had been lined up to replace him, emerged.
Jerry Collins quit his contract a year early in 2008 and, while there have been suggestions and rumours that he did so because he and Richie McCaw could no longer work compatibly, the whole business remains a mystery.
There have also been plenty of isolated or aggregated incidents on a similar level to what the Wallabies are currently experiencing courtesy of Beale.
In recent years, Sione Lauaki and Jimmy Cowan came close to contract termination. The latter saved his job by a whisker and, as fate would have it, was thrust into the All Blacks starting line-up a week later.
Cowan was universally supported publicly, played out of his skin, helped the All Blacks thump the Wallabies and turned his life around from there.
The same story - apart from the turning his life around bit - played out when Zac Guildford was recalled by the All Blacks in 2012. Guildford, of course, had the infamous Rarotonga episode and then a punch-up at a party a few months later.
Despite his brave admission he was an alcoholic and undertaking a rehabilitation programme, no one could be sure what sort of influence he'd be in the national fold. If there were fears about his volatility, they were never expressed publicly.
The incident which had most potential to damage the All Blacks came before the quarter-final of the last World Cup when it emerged, on the day of the game, that Israel Dagg and Cory Jane had been out drinking during the week. It was a crazy decision and one management and senior leaders were angry about.
But after defeating Argentina - a game in which Jane was man of the match - captain Richie McCaw would only say: "I think if we are realistic about putting everything into winning this thing, it's about making good decisions and we've probably had an incident that's probably not a good decision."
The closest there has been to a revelation was Anton Oliver's biography in 2006, which detailed some of his dislike and lack of respect for former All Blacks coach John Mitchell.
This wasn't, however, a cheap shot on Oliver's part to help him sell more books. He spoke out because he felt the culture of the team and the collective values in which he and other senior players believed, were not upheld by Mitchell and that to stay quiet would increase the risk of future management teams eroding and tainting what so many had fought so hard to create and preserve. An All Black implosion - now that would beman bites dog. No other international team has the same unity of thinking and operating as the All Blacks. The Springboks come close but probably not quite to the same extent.
So the question is, how have the All Blacks managed to be so different? Most teams write a few behavioural values on a whiteboard and think it's team culture.
With the All Blacks, they live their culture. No one coming into the team needs necessarily be told what is expected. It's not as if they had no idea they were supposed to uphold a set of values that stretch back more than 100 years.
The key to the All Blacks culture is the lack of ambiguity. All Blacks have acted the same way for more than a century. There's consistency of behaviour and conduct from a role modelling perspective.
And in the current team, there is a similarly clean, easy-to-follow set of rules.
"We've got some really good, basic guidelines about how we are going to operate and expectations about how we are going to operate before things happen," says head coach Steve Hansen.
"If things happen that don't meet those guidelines, then we are open and honest about what we are going to do.
"I have often said it's like your kids ... you can either let them go with it and you will keep getting repeat-offending or you deal with it fairly, quickly, openly and honestly and then you get over it. "Not many people are silly enough to keep making the same mistakes but, if they are, it's the old adage, if you can't change the man then you have to change the man. You just can't have an apple that rots the rest."
For the players, the culture becomes ingrained, they say, through a variety of mechanisms. Much of it is assumed long before they become All Blacks. The likes of Richie McCaw, Kieran Read and Keven Mealamu conduct themselves in such a way that external observers can get a good feel for what the All Blacks are all about.
Some of it is learned almost by osmosis once players make the squad - they observe and learn from senior players. And some of it is learned by being told directly and having openness and transparency for players to air their feelings.
They're also given a handbook when they first make the team which contains a host of contact numbers and guidelines on what to wear at various times in the week.
"The culture has a family feeling," says Liam Messam. "A lot of teams say they are a family but a lot of the time that is just words. But I believe this team has those values. Everyone here knows what a strong family value is and we keep each other accountable and don't want to let each other down.
"When something happens, like it happens in a family, we want to pick each other up. We have an open team here. There are ways and avenues that you go and talk to people if you are not happy.
"The boys are pretty open anyway - they will say it to your face. But if some of the younger guys are a bit scared to say something, there are guys you can talk to who will help you out.
"You know what the culture is but you don't really understand what it is until you get into the system. Once you are in there, the management and leaders do a really good job in making sure you lift those values every day.
"The leaders always say you are an All Black 24/7. There are not too many rules, I guess - it is the All Black way. The boys understand what that it is. It's just about being a genuine human."
Failure to discipline and control the so-called three amigos of James O'Connor, Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale was the key reason Robbie Deans had to quit as Wallabies coach. In 2011, O'Connor missed the official Wallabies World Cup launch after he slept in. It came to light that months earlier, the three had been in a fight in Paris.
All of them went to the World Cup. All of them under-performed. In 2013, Beale was brought back to face the Lions shortly after he checked out of rehabilitation for alcohol issues and O'Connor was handed the No 10 jersey he coveted. When both were photographed in a burger bar at 4am a few days before the second test, Deans was under pressure to drop them. He didn't, the Wallabies lost the series and the senior players moved in to say enough was enough.
Jimmy Cowan was struggling in 2008. A family tragedy had a deep impact on him and he was hitting the booze too often and with bad outcomes. He had two court appearances and, in the middle of the Tri Nations, faced a disciplinary hearing when his contract was a whisker away from being ripped up.
Management talked publicly about his need to turn his life around and live to the conditions imposed on his employment being extended. But they talked of their desire to support him and see him succeed. His team-mates did the same and, when injury struck, Cowan was asked to start against the Wallabies at Eden Park in a must-win game. The All Blacks had lost their last two and were on the ropes. Cowan played the game of his life and the All Blacks won 39-10. No extended drama or implosion.
World Cup campaign 2011 Cory Jane and Israel Dagg went out on the Thursday before the quarter-final and were seen drunk in Takapuna. It was reported in the Herald on Sunday on the day of the game. Earlier that day, All Black manager Darren Shand said both players had let down the team. Later that night, Jane was man of the match and apologised to his team-mates, management and public.
"I knew I had to put in a good performance after making a poor decision the other night and it being thrown all over the paper this morning," Jane said. "When you do something stupid and it comes out in the media on game day, it can affect the team. I'm just happy the boys played well and we managed to get the win."
Then-assistant coach Steve Hansen chipped in with this: "There's no point going on and on about it. It's like your children - when they make mistakes you sit down, sort it out and then you move on. You don't stop loving them and you don't stop expecting them to contribute to the family, and he's no different."
The All Blacks went on to win the World Cup and, earlier this year, Jane picked up his 50th test cap.
After one game, the players were let loose on the turps. Chaos ensued. Dwarf throwing and accusations of high-profile infidelity were made. A media circus ensued and the scandal rumbled on when it transpired the central figure in the scandal, Mike Tindall, had lied. "His recollection on his whereabouts that night was inaccurate," coach Martin Johnson said long after his team had spiralled out of control.
After they were dumped out of their quarter-final, a full review took place that found senior players were obsessed with money and bullied junior players into denouncing training. We know this because the findings were leaked to the media. Johnson was out and the captain and leadership team were removed.
At 15, Greg Cooper was told he had only six months to live.