It would also bring, it is maybe not too fanciful to imagine when you remember quite how deeply the average New Zealander, one of just four million of them of course, identifies with the prowess of his rugby team, a degree of aid and comfort to that embattled stretch of country that used to run with such implacable certainty from the now earthquake-ravaged Christchurch into the plains of Canterbury.
Indeed, if Richie McCaw's team announce themselves winners in Auckland next month there should be little difficulty in picking out arguably the epicentre of New Zealand celebration. It is likely to be the small town of Southbridge, birthplace of the world's most gifted rugby player, Danny Carter.
Southbridge, 45km southwest of Christchurch, is like so many small towns in New Zealand. It has 721 people, 260 houses and nine rugby teams. The rugby club was established in 1871 and for most of the time since has been announcing itself as an archetypal foundation of the New Zealand passion for the oval ball. Carter wasn't their first All Black when he burst into international recognition eight years ago but the shirt he handed to the club after a dramatic debut against Wales is understandably occupying pride of place on its honours board.
When Carter had still to accumulate a quarter of his current total of 83 Test caps, he was already being embraced as something more than a phenomenally talented outside-half.
He was, the reigning club president announced while opening up the clubhouse on a winter afternoon of brilliant sunshine, someone who had restored the roots of New Zealand rugby, returned it to a past where the line of succession was unthreatened by a drift away from the countryside and, still less, the impact of an earthquake which would cast long-term doubts about the workability of the land which in everyone's living memory had been covered in wheat and landmarked by a church, a war memorial and a rugby field.
Chris McKinnon declared: "Go into every little town in the country and they will tell you that Danny Carter has given us the most precious thing apart from identity and pride and belief in our past, which we know in rugby has been great, but also the future. He has given us hope that we can remake past greatness.
"The fear was that with the farms going mechanised and more and more young people having to go to the big cities for employment, our rugby culture was in trouble. But you see what Danny has done and you say, 'Here is an example for everyone to follow'. Ask any of those little kids running out there and ask them who they want to be and they will tell you, 'Danny Carter'."
There was every reason for such encouragement back in 2005, when the emerging Carter cut the Lions into so many pieces one night in Wellington and the future had never seemed less wired for ambush.
But of course a forlorn pattern did not change in the 2007 World Cup. The ignominies of all those previous failures returned more hauntingly than ever when the wiles of Carter were insufficient on a quarter-final day when the French made one of their periodic discoveries that they were capable of beating anyone in the world.
It means that this morning the rugby world once again examines the possibility that the All Blacks are merely temporary favourites in the game that has dictated the nation's heart rate for so long. The sense here, though, is one easily shared with Southbridge. This one says it is time to lift not only the glass but the heart of a great sports nation.
- INDEPENDENT
