All Blacks Mark Telea and Dalton Papali'i alongside defence coach Scott McLeod look ahead to their clash with Italy as the team is ‘buzzing’ from an impressive South Africa v Ireland match over the weekend. Video / NZ Herald / Photosport
OPINION
Gregor Paul in Lyon
Some mischievous types, and some who have been unduly spooked by the losses to South Africa and France, have floated the idea that the All Blacks may well lose to Italy this weekend.
The Italians are greatly improved on the teamthey were two years ago, and this is, by everyone’s reckoning, the closest World Cup in history.
But an All Blacks loss to Italy would rate as the greatest shock in World Cup history.
It would be more stunning than Japan beating South Africa or Tonga beating France, because for that to happen, something will have gone catastrophically wrong for the New Zealand side.
Italy may be improved, but it is from a low base, and they remain a relatively weak team, having won just one Six Nations game in the last three years.
The global power base is of course shifting and things that were perhaps unthinkable a decade ago, such as Ireland first beating then building a (recent) dominant record against the All Blacks, or Argentina winning a test in New Zealand, have indeed happened.
But New Zealand losing to Italy at this World Cup remains unimaginable – a result that would force the sort of in-depth inquest that would inevitably lead to heads rolling, and any suggestion of the All Blacks having an aura would be laughed out of town.
It would just about be time to turn off the lights on rugby if the All Blacks lose to Italy, and head over to Mt Smart Stadium and hope to high heaven that the Warriors didn’t just have the one good season a decade they seem to have.
This hypothesising about how disastrous a defeat to Italy would be for the All Blacks serves the purpose of contextualising just how far the Wallabies have fallen in a relatively short space of time, and just how broken the game is across the Tasman.
It does this because the Wallabies did indeed lose to Italy on their end-of-season tour last year, and yet it didn’t bring the sky caving in.
Australian players acknowledge the crowd after their loss to Wales. Photo / Getty Images
Australians have become so used to losing to almost everyone, that even a defeat to Italy last year barely registered. What’s one more humiliating loss among so many?
It probably didn’t help former coach Dave Rennie keep his job, but it’s hard not to wonder whether even if he had masterminded wins against France, Ireland, South Africa and took back the Bledisloe Cup, he was going to be out on his ear the second Eddie Jones was fired by England and became available.
But looking back now, Rugby Australia – and indeed the rugby public from across the ditch – would probably feel that the 28-27 defeat to Italy last year was more gallant than catastrophic.
Probably now, losing to Italy by just one point seems like a corking effort by the Wallabies who produced arguably the worst performance ever seen at a World Cup by a Tier One nation when they lost 40-6 to Wales on Sunday night.
They were beyond dire. They offered a decent opening 20-minute spell when they had a bit of life and cohesion about them, and then they descended into an almost farcical rabble, as if they were trying to see how awful they could be.
The world wants to blame coach Eddie Jones, and sure enough, even against his own agenda of promoting youth and rebuilding the team with 2027 in mind, he’s made some odd and inconsistent decisions, but the meltdown in Lyon put the whole sorry state of Australian rugby in plain view.
The Wallabies were so bad as to make so many things undeniable now.
New Zealand has to stop kidding itself on any level that the All Blacks are being prepared for the real assignments they face in test rugby by winning the Bledisloe Cup.
The players can enjoy the moment and respect the history, but it’s delusional to keep thinking it’s any kind of accurate indication of how the All Blacks are tracking on the world stage.
More urgently, New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia need to commit to one another. They say they have, and contractually, as it pertains to Super Rugby Pacific, that is true.
But they remain wary of one another, constantly looking to undermine one another or get one over on their partner, and so there is no basis to work honestly together, genuinely aligned to the common goal of making each other stronger.
Australia needs help, but Australia has to be willing to accept help and New Zealand has to offer it without the usual patronising tones and underlying arrogance.
Whatever it takes to fix Super Rugby – more money, fewer teams, foreign players, a draft, a coaching swap... whatever – brainstorm it, agree it, do it and fix it.
Because if nothing changes in Australia, whose rugby ecosystem is so intertwined with New Zealand’s, maybe by the next World Cup, it won’t be a shock at all if Italy beat the All Blacks.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
