The Canes are setting the early standards. Despite that, the forward battle shouldn’t be too one sided. But there’s a gulf between the smooth functioning of the Canes’ backline, directed by Cam Roigard and Brett Cameron in the halves, and the jitters that have plagued the Crusaders’ combinations so far.
If the Crusaders win, I’d seriously suggest it’d be the biggest upset in Christchurch since the Baby Blacks, with 11 players making their test debuts, beat a powerful French side, 18-9, in 1986.
An increasingly empty engine room
With Scott Barrett’s injury, it’s an uncomfortable fact that if the All Blacks were playing a test before the end of April they would be without three locks, Barrett, Brodie Retallick, and Sam Whitelock, who have been the backbone of the scrum since 2016.
Between them they’ve played 331 tests. A super talented rookie, like a John Kirwan or a Jonah Lomu, can step into the international arena and be a star on the wing, where no matter how shrewd and smart a veteran opponent is, he can be overcome by speed and flair.
But in the dark heart of tight play there’s no substitute for the school of (sometime barely legal) hard knocks.
Tupou Vaa’i has great promise, as do Josh Lord and Quinten Strange. But how many tests do they have between them? The slightly scary answer is just 29.
The most unsung hero?
Tyrel Lomax is proving again this year that he’s the foundation stone of the Hurricanes’ pack.
Tighthead prop is an often anonymous position, but without a rock like figure there, as Owen Franks was at the 2011 and 2015 World Cups, the set piece can be an obvious, easily exploited weakness.
Franks is a rugged perfectionist, who cut his teeth as a 10-year-old for the Lyttleton club, told before every game by his dad to “tackle the biggest guy in the opposing team, who was usually a Pacific Island kid with a moustache”.
Lomax has more than a steely hint of Franks about him. You won’t see him side-stepping down the field with the ball in hand, but from the time Jason Ryan became the All Blacks’ forward coach in 2022, Lomax has had a vice-like grip on the No.3 jersey.
There are gaps for Scott Robertson to fill in the 2024 All Blacks. As long as Lomax is available, tighthead prop isn’t one.
Eden Park isn’t off the beaten track
Simon Wilson’s excellent column on Auckland stadiums brought some clear-eyed commonsense to a debate that’s often been strong on emotion and prejudice, and short on detail.
One urban myth I can debunk is that Eden Park is the only major rugby ground in the world based in the suburbs. Having had the huge good fortune to have watched test rugby overseas in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and Japan, I can vouch for the fact that the only city centre ground is the Principality Stadium (the old Cardiff Arms Park) in Wales.
As just one example, the 16km train service from Waterloo in central London to Twickenham takes about 30 minutes, and the rugby stadium isn’t next door, but a 15 minute walk away, through the, er, suburb of Twickenham.
Talent will out
The French captain, Antoine Dupont, took a daring leap, when he opted out of this year’s Six Nations to concentrate on sevens rugby, in the hope of playing at the Paris Olympics in July.
Even in France, where the 27-year-old enjoys iconic status, there were some who doubted he could adapt quickly enough.
But he’s proving that a former French sevens captain, Terry Bouhraoua, may have been right when he told Le Monde newspaper last November that Dupont “is an extraterrestrial. Even if you put him in a Formula One car he would still finish first”.
With Dupont playing brilliantly, France clocked up their first sevens tournament win for 19 years in Los Angeles two weeks ago. Dupont was denied a Rugby World Cup medal in Paris last year, but the chance of an Olympic medal in front of a French crowd is far from an impossible dream.
