Our only Cup-winning captain warns against pinning hopes on the All Blacks' current dominance, writes Peter Bills.
His greatest rugby triumph came 23 long years ago - by strange chance, the exact same amount of time New Zealanders have fantasised about winning another Rugby World Cup.
David Kirk, the only New Zealand captain ever to have lifted the Webb Ellis Cup, admits it's a bit lonely as
the only member of this country's most exclusive club. "It'd be nice to have someone join me at last as a New Zealand World Cup-winning captain - it is a lonely club," he grins.
But Kirk, an erudite man, has wise words of warning for New Zealand's current crop of All Blacks and their increasingly expectant supporters as the clock ticks down to next year's Rugby World Cup.
How much notice should be paid to the All Blacks' present dominance of world rugby, I asked Kirk when we spoke recently in Melbourne. Putting it bluntly, his reply was emphatic. "Not a lot.
"Look at the changes from last year to this. South Africa were unbeatable last year playing pretty much the same style of rugby. This year, they can't win a match.
"So in 12 months, they have gone from being the No 1 team in the world to third best."
Might that then happen to the All Blacks 12 months from now?
"When you go into a World Cup with the tournament environment, everything goes out of the window. So really, what has gone before doesn't matter. Look at England in the last World Cup. As they showed, if you can figure out a way to play your best or play a style of rugby which is working at that particular moment in that tournament, that's fine, then do it.
"So what we are seeing at the moment is not the sole template for the rest of the game for ever more.
"The only thing that brings consistent success, apart from quality of players from the production line which brings players up to this level, is the ability to innovate and adapt.
"It's about who adapts quickest, who finds the way to figure out how to play under the new law interpretations. That is the X-factor in all this."
Which is what the All Blacks are doing now, isn't it?
He smiles. "That is not uncommon in the cycles of rugby but other people catch up very quickly. Speaking as an All Blacks supporter, I think it's a shame all this (the Tri-Nations success forged on enterprising, attacking play) has come one year ahead because they have caught on to the new interpretations quickly.
"But in a year, the dice will have rolled again ..."
Oh dear, not another New Zealand side fated to be remembered as one that peaked between World Cups? Kirk shrugs; he doesn't know, so he won't guess. But what of the tournament itself?
"I think it will be very well staged. It's not going to be a big European-type World Cup with big grounds and infrastructure. But people will have a unique New Zealand experience [at] this tournament."
He expects the second-tier teams to continue to make progress despite his belief that the top teams are moving away so it is increasingly hard for the likes of Australia (sorry, just joking), Samoa, Fiji and Japan to close the gap. But if you just assess those countries on their own level from World Cup to World Cup, he insists they are continuing to improve. That, he says, has to be good for the game.
For sure, it was all very different in 1987, his World Cup. Does it seem a long while back? "A lot has happened since then, but I can remember the games very well so in that sense it doesn't seem so long ago."
Of course he'd love to see the All Blacks do it next year. But Kirk deals in realities. "New Zealand is such a proud rugby nation but there is no such thing as 'you deserve to win'. You either take it when it's there to be taken or you're not up to it."
Why have there been so many years of near-misses, does he think? "You can't generalise but sometimes we just haven't been the best team.
"In 1991 and 1999, Australia were the best but in 1995 New Zealand were probably unlucky because they were the best team, although South Africa finished worthy winners in the end. The one I really didn't understand was the last one, 2007, and losing to France in Cardiff.
"That was a good team [but] when France scored, against the run of play, New Zealand stopped thinking, stopped playing the style and pattern of rugby that would have won it for them.
"I don't think they will make the same mistake again."
