Classy win must sway All Black selectors

By CHRIS RATTUE

WAIKATO 59 CANTERBURY 41

John Mitchell helped to write the script that is Waikato rugby when he fearlessly led one of the finest provincial packs.

A decade or so on, his successors poked some significant holes in the page Mitchell now reads from as All Black coach.

If Saturday's logic in the Hamilton sunshine does not at least sway the national selectors to consider different paths of selections or tactics, then nothing will.

Wearing the colours they always have, but in a Waikato Stadium far removed in appearance if not location from rickety Rugby Park, the Waikato forwards delivered one of the most humbling lessons an All Black-laden pack could receive.

Waikato won a halftime standing ovation from a crowd of 17,000 at the 25,000-capacity venue. They also cheered long and loud at fulltime, as Canterbury's players grasped Waikato hands then wandered away to grasp how their champion outfit had been dissected.

By that point, the Waikato players were greeting the crowd and saluting their fans. This was not a match marked with the tag of a final, or the Ranfurly Shield, but it will live in the memory as a remarkable rugby day. The two sides delivered one of the finest games of an era defined by professionalism and rules which sometimes work and at other times produce a shambles.

This game was a hard-nosed provincial throwback which put the frilly Super 12 circus to shame.

For a start, it was played in the afternoon, in superb sunshine, without false lighting, dew or biting cold to distract the players or spectators. It was a spit in the eye for the corporate, money-obsessed world which dictates that rugby often occurs in conditions you find in the fridge.

Referee Paddy O'Brien played his part, keeping penalties to a minimum until the final third, when Canterbury's composure failed.

Still, a penalty/freekick count under 20 represents a remarkable breakthrough in rugby union, to rank alongside notable sporting moments such as New Zealand thinking about becoming the world basketball champions. It has been a strange week.

Hamilton would have been a strange experience indeed for a Canterbury team full of internationals who have lost only once previously this year through the Super 12 and test season.

And this is no time to start writing off such a resilient group who have achieved so much, nor to suggest that Waikato had banged bits of metal into an oblong wooden box marked Canterbury.

Canterbury's individual class through players such as Ben Blair kept threatening a rescue among the wreckage.

It is fair to suggest, though, that this was such a comprehensive defeat that the All Blacks selectors might think "Eichelbaum", and have a self-imposed review.

They undoubtedly question themselves anyway, but the answers may have changed since Saturday.

Waikato are the nearly-men and, to be fair, sometimes with just cause. Yet as soon as Bruce Reihana, Rhys Duggan, Roger Randle, Todd Miller, Mark Ranby and Royce Willis get into All Black teams, they become discards awaiting recalls.

Others, and most significantly the again-magnificent Deon Muir, do not get a look-in.

They are as unfashionable as the pile of rubble they used to play in. Flirting with the All Blacks is their lot. Only Marty Holah has hung on, as Richard McCaw's understudy.

On Saturday, Waikato faced the best in this nation with a pack led by a sort of United Nations front row - prop David Briggs, who once captained Tonga, Fijian captain Greg Smith, and New Zealand Maori prop Deacon Manu.

With Willis and Keith Robinson again superb at kickoffs, lineouts and in their rampaging charges - Willis particularly on that score - this tight five rumbled their side to victory.

A Canterbury pack including two of the finest of test prospects in McCaw and Chris Jack, plus the test front rowers and No 8, were destroyed by the do-or-die forward values, executed with skill and passion, on which All Black rugby was founded. Waikato won the ruck count 115-42. There must be a message there.

Waikato triumphed by denying Canterbury possession and recycling the ball so well that momentum was a piece of cake.

And if things did grind to a halt, Willis, in particular, ploughed the ball up with such ferocity that the roll was soon back on.

Afterwards, the always modest Muir admitted being "over the moon". Pride would have given him a swollen heart to match the enlarged lip he was sporting.

In contrast, the Canterbury forwards angled back towards rucks and the team's short-side defence was shaky. Justin Marshall, often such a combative force, was hesitant and gave his side an awful start by dropping the opening kickoff and a simple lineout ball a few minutes later.

Waikato always had an answer. The Tokoroa-raised Derek Maisey, who played a couple of games for Canterbury in 2000, ran cleverly off this forward domination for three tries.

Throw in brilliant goalkicking from Bruce Reihana, who landed 10 out of 11, and this was a display of near perfection apart from a few individual tackling lapses.

After the match, Holah suggested it was difficult for Canterbury having to peak for the Super 12, test and NPC seasons.

On All Black selections, Holah said: "This was just one game. I guess if it came down to a hairline decision they would look at this. But they look over the whole season."

Maybe, yet could one game change this All Black story? Unlikely, but it should have written a significant new chapter. And should the NPC trophy end up in Hamilton, it would give the All Black plot more twists than a hurricane.

It could contain an ironic twist: Laurie Mains gave a Waikato No 8 and captain called John Mitchell a late All Black call-up. Might Mitchell do the same for his Waikato successor, the 29-year-old Muir?