Paul Lewis: AB World Cup strategy starting to pall

As long as no one hauls off and hits me with a handbag, I'd like to make the following assertion: It's difficult to get interested in the All Black test programme this year.

It's not actually the programme as much as the incessant focus on the 2007 World Cup and the constant resting, rotating, reconditioning, rehabilitating of players.

With the test against Ireland a few days away, I'm struggling to fight off the feeling that... I don't much care. This is a new sensation. Anticipation of All Black tests has previously been a sharp, tangible thing.

Those of us lucky to follow them to various ends of the earth have enjoyed even the duff games. On rare occasions, we have even enjoyed the defeats when the opposition have been playing sublime stuff (France, mostly - I can honestly say I have never enjoyed a defeat by Australia).

Nor can anyone say this is just journalistic weariness. Journalists can suffer from too much rugby but I don't think I am ready for, as Graham Henry would now say, a bit of reconditioning and rehabilitation (didn't the All Black coaches look pleased with themselves with their clever new definition of 'R & R'?).

No, it's just that the novelty has worn off.

No one can dispute Henry's strategy where everything is subsumed by the World Cup. The whole country is going along with it because (a) we would all sell our grandmother and her Royal Doulton china for another World Cup win; (b) because no one has ever tried it before and (c) because it appears to be working.

Yet it was only a year or so ago that we were all falling about laughing as Clive Woodward brought 44 Lions to New Zealand.

Yet there we were, sitting like little lambs while Henry and Co read out 39 names in a bewildering array of combinations, followed by Juniors and Maori teams. We needed a maths professor and one of those calculus books to cope. It's like 44 = dumb; 39 = smart. Hmmm.

Try as I may to remember that this is all part of 'The Grand Plan', I can't help a sneaking feeling that we are disrespecting Ireland. Henry probably realised this, hence his odd comments that Ireland in NZ was a harder task than Argentina in Buenos Aires. Unless he was figuring that the players' strike really would effectively de-claw the Pumas.

But even that doesn't make sense. The starting XV for Buenos Aires is very strong, close to a No 1 All Black test team on recent form. In contrast, the squad for Ireland contains about five, maybe six potential front-liners.

The 2007-over-all approach has created a whole new era of 'associate' All Blacks - players who get the jersey but don't figure in World Cup plans. In the interests of the new 'R&R', some players are being whipped back into black jerseys but will be watching the World Cup on TV. They can perhaps be regarded as the modern equivalent of a Bevan Holmes - a fine player and a 31-match All Black in the '70s but one who never played a test match.

Some are experimental selections and fair enough too. I do not doubt for a moment that the All Blacks who play against Ireland will give it their all. Nor do I doubt that they will win. But the fact remains - you can parade a donkey as though it is a horse but, when all is said and done, it is still a donkey. It will not be the No 1 All Black team. And that's what's beginning to pall a little.

We also hear Henry is keen on removing All Blacks for part of next year's Super 14 to ensure their optimum participation in the World Cup. You cannot fault the man's focus. Even if at least two former All Black coaches get all bent over and start biting whatever is nearest to them when they recall Henry's stance on players when he was a provincial coach and they wanted certain things done re certain players.

So the World Cup has now reached into the Super 14 and, for three years of the four-year cycle, we are watching an 'associate' All Blacks.

But international credibility is no easy thing to gain and maintain. Ask rugby league. Ask NZ cricket whose ability at the 'hit and giggle' version of the game cannot mask a damaging loss of credibility in test cricket.

Win, lose or draw, Graham Henry has apparently said privately he will not coach the All Blacks past 2007. Which makes me wonder about the next bloke. Will he also be sewn into the Henry R&R philosophy? Will we see 40- and 50-strong All Black squads after next year?

You wonder at the longevity of this; how long rugby fans will back it. Fair enough for 2007 - but will things always be this way?

I hope not. Not if it means, as Henry said the other day, that: "These matches against Ireland and Argentina are really an international trial."

No, they're test matches. Maybe they are a World Cup trial and maybe they are good for All Black rugby. But good for rugby as a whole? Doubtful.