All Blacks v Springboks: Record defeat will benefit Ian Foster’s side ahead of Rugby World Cup - Paul Lewis

Scott Barrett and the All Blacks battled with some officious refereeing. Photo / photosport.nz

OPINION

Believe it or not, that horrible, record loss of a test match will be of benefit to the All Blacks.

We’ve all heard of wake-up calls. This was an air raid siren, a tsunami alert, a klaxon blasted in All Black ears while they’re asleep. The Rugby Championship? Who cares?

This is what the All Blacks will face at the World Cup - and much of it is an indictment on rugby and the way it has painted itself into a corner of stupid rules and a ridiculous enthusiasm for ruining the spectacle so many people have paid good money for, in terms of tickets and TV.

They’ll come up against various nations who can play like the Springboks did - ruthless set pieces, relentless pressure, playing to punctilious referees and TMOs who could spot an infraction if it was committed by an ant at the opposite end of the field.

We’ll come back to how rugby is so quickly becoming the game that bored itself to death. First, we must salute the Springboks for playing their version of the game so well they inflicted the worst defeat in 102 years of All Blacks history.

The world champions dominated ahead of their defence. Photo / photosport.nz

They decimated the New Zealand lineout and, during the second half, demolished the scrum. Their rolling maul did the business even though stubborn All Blacks defence kept them at bay for 15 minutes or so before Siya Kolisi scored. A whole 30 minutes had gone by and New Zealand were still on defence and had not mounted an attack worthy of the name, so insistent was the Bok pressure and so mistake-laden the All Blacks.

That was even before Scott Barrett negated a stellar season with his sending-off for two yellow cards, neither of which needed to attract the attention of eagle-eyed referee and TMO.

So how will this be good for the All Blacks? It rids them of any notions of superiority following their Rugby Championship win. It introduced them heavily to the finicky, officious and painstaking curation of the rules by northern hemisphere referees, who will be highly evident during the World Cup. It told them their favourite running game - the game most Kiwis want to see - will end badly unless they nail down the basics first.

The All Blacks are perfectly capable of doing that, even if Ian Foster’s All Blacks have another awful, unwanted record: first to lose a series to Ireland; first to lose a test to Argentina and now their record test loss.

It was hard to say what their game plan was; they never emerged from a slew of penalties and mistakes to reveal one. It’s likely that, in the World Cup against leading opponents, they will go a lot more direct - the advantages of which were shown by one of their few bright lights, replacement halfback Cam Roigard, who scored their only try by breaking up the middle.

The Boks’ rolling maul started the rot, with the All Blacks suffering multiple penalties as they tried - and failed - to combat it to the satisfaction of the officials. Later, the Boks cleverly scored tries from two variations to the rolling maul.

While we are on the subject, why does the rolling maul even exist? It’s unsightly and technically illegal, according to the offside and obstruction rules of rugby. It’s about as visually pleasing as someone vomiting in your beanie. No disrespect is meant to the Boks - they did what they did extremely well; they set out their stall as defending World Cup champions and how they will play the game in France next month.

But it’s the grand old game of rugby that suffers when a test match is this awful to look at. There was no flow, little ball skills to speak of. Inventiveness and elusiveness? Missing, presumed dead. The errors ran amok, the officials showed every sign of thoroughly enjoying detecting them and, if you interviewed the entire 80,000 crowd at Twickenham, my guess is not one would say they got value for money.

By my count, it was 42 minutes before Will Jordan even touched the ball (and that was scoring a disallowed try, of course). In what universe is that worth watching?

Rugby needs to drop some of the plethora of rules it employs seemingly to bore us all to death - the rolling maul, the inevitable scrum penalty when one side wins the shove (why stop the game to give the ball to the team already with the ball?) and playing endless advantages before running back multiple metres for, yawn, yet another penalty, a kick and a set piece.

“Advantage over” is a ref’s call which needs to be made far more often in rugby. In one instance, the ref ran back 30 metres after several phases of play to award a scrum penalty to the Boks near their own goal line. Why? Let the game flow. Fewer penalties also mean fewer yellow and red cards, less disruption and game-ruining boredom.

You hope the World Cup is won by someone playing expansive, All Blacks-style rugby. The reality is that it will likely be a style which adheres far more closely to the straitjacket of the rules of the game. Time to change.