The All Blacks and their second RWC Trophy

First topic message reminder :

There has been a number of articles lately on other websites on whether the All Blacks can win the RWC and whether Carter is any good, to injury niggles to Carter and McCaw will reduce the All Blacks chances this October. Then of course the usual article about the All Blacks choking or “bottling it”.

As far as the “choking” or “bottling” issue. The two main rivals for the All Blacks over the past years SA and Australia have both during the Tri Nations won 29.41 percent of their matches, this is clear proof that NZ is in fact quite a bit better than SA and Australia.

Coming to the RWC, New Zealand’s biggest rivals in RWC are firstly Australia who have won 2 out of 2 matches, SA who has won 2 out of 3 matches and France who has won 2 out of 4 matches. These are the only nations that have beaten the All Blacks in RWC history. The others thus far have had no success.
Additional teams with realistic aspirations to beating New Zealand in New Zealand would most likely be England as Ireland has never beaten New Zealand and Wales haven’t done that either for over 50 years. Here is England’s record against New Zealand at the RWC.

England lost 18-12 at Twickenham in 1991
England lost 45-29 at Newlands in 1995
England lost 30-16 at Twickenham in 1999.

Looking at the losses New Zealand has had against France, SA and Australia, you could argue that the matches against France was “debatable”, in the case of Australia in both matches New Zealand was outplayed, names such as Campese, Horan etc springs to mind.

Against SA in 1995 both teams had fly halves who employed the drop goal and Joel Stransky was the difference. During the 1999 RWC, I doubt whether the All Blacks had much motivation for the third place play offs and let’s be honest, the Springboks had a rather good team who lost on a drop goal to Stephen Larkham of all people during their semi final clash against Australia.

So that brings me to the 1999 match against France and the 2007 match against France.

There are too many events that conspired against the All Blacks in 2007 to call that a choke. A forward pass in a knock out match, an inexperienced captain, injuries and a few decisions allowed the French to take that match. Yes, I would think the 1999 loss against the French was a case of Rabbits in the headlight syndrome after France went on a scoring spree during the second half.

I get the feeling that the continual insistence by some posters is more subliminal method to convince themselves there are cracks in the All Black armory than anything else.

As far as injuries go, that is the same for any team, it is often the luck of the draw whether you have a full compliment of first choice players, but inevitably all teams are open to that. Do I believe the All Blacks will struggle without Carter and McCaw? No, I am not convinced that the All Black performance is affected so badly by the possibility of losing Carter or McCaw. They are both great players, but any team will adjust their game play to a certain extent depending on who plays in pivotal positions. As long as the replacement player plays to his own strengths and not try to emulate the injured player.

What is most important and is often the deciding factor in any match is what happens on the day. The All Blacks are the leading team in world rugby, and has been for a long time, but yet they are not invincible, and a team going into a clash against them need to use the right tactics to negate the All Black strengths.

As shown in statistics earlier there are a few teams who have a greater statistical advantage to beat the All Blacks, but they still have to do it on the day.

You could most likely categorise two ways for teams to put one over on the All Blacks, I would think for Australia and France to beat New Zealand, they will have to outplay them in attacking running rugby, and thereby test All Black defences.

In the other category I would put SA and England, both will be more effective in slowly strangling the life out of the All Blacks by using forward domination and living off mistakes. They will however need to restrict the All Blacks with possession.

I believe the All Blacks will win this RWC trophy, perhaps then two statements won’t see the light of day anymore. Firstly the choking tag can be canned, and also the statement made by many All Black supporters, that the RWC doesn’t mean much to them.

Both of these are false.

Fair call too PJ...winding up us Kiwis like that... just not cricket is it!

emack2 wrote:GreatAukster if you consider a 75% win rate since 1905,81.6% win rate since 1996[177 matches played 31 lost]85% since 2003,and a RWC win,Beaten RWC finalist,5 out of 6 RWC semi-finalist,The ONLY side not to lose a group match in a RWC,IRB Number One for vortually the whole of it`s existence.Underachieving you must have very high standards indeed I don`t see any other nation producing anything like those stats..Those are the stats of THE best side in WORLD Rugby no matter who held the little gold pot.

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emack2. i just had to comment on your post, reading your post just remionded of Graham Henry just after the Abs was knocked out in 2007.

He said the Abs are still the best team in the world. It is just that we dont have tha little yellow cup to prove it.

You are not Graham Henry are you by any chance?

Well its still true Aukster...when Aus beat us in Hong Kong last year on the umpteenth of umpteenth attempts, the AB's were still 'the best in the world' and losing one match didnt change that.

best and WC champs are 2 different things...ask any Brazilian...

No i`m not!!!,I just get alittle tired of people going on about the All Blacks relative failure in RWC`s.Especially when a lot of the sides they support have never reached a RWC.I support England too except where the All Blacks are concerned.But I did`nt just start watching them when Sir Clive produced a great team,Geoff Cooke,and Jack Rowell did too.But as the man said,RWC holders and THE best team in the world are usually different things.It is fair to say that 1987,1991,2003 for those periods they were one and the same.1995 ,2007 definitely not.1999 debatable but long term no arguments All Black.

It did not take long for the "poisoned milk" and "High political stakes" matter to get churned out again! The depths some people from NZ will go to in order to defend why their team loses is beyond sometimes.

GG still awaiting your proof of where POB said his stuff about NZ's favourite ref!

One good thing to say though. The All Black's never choke they are beaten fairly and squarely when they do get beaten.

Is it also fair to state that there is a big ????? looming over the 1987 WC win considering a certain team was not playing? I do.

If you are referring to the Boks,if they had`nt dropped out in 1981-2 indeed they may have.Wales actually made the Semi`s then too,since when they returned 1992 the Boks only won two matches and drew one vNZ 1992-8 both at home out of 12 so that is very debatable.Funny the carpers always bring up 1987 but never 1991 .We are to assume then the Boks win every RWC just by turning up ? it did`nt happen we will never know you only beat the teams in front of you.One things forsure IF NZ win this year they`ll still lose because it will be."Well they can only win at Home"

Well it is actually true Alan, We havnt won away and only got close once.
I don't think the 'they can only win at home' will be a common one.
If we win and are no. 1 at the same time theres not really much that can be argued. 'can't win away from home' would make a very poor knife in a gunfight.

Most people respect the ABs for what they are and theyre the one team that dont need defending. Bottom line is theyre winners and theyre at home. Thats the most lethal cocktail in rugby. Add the crowds and the non wins from 1987 and I say any team that beats them under those conditions completely deserves it.

Getting back to the point,and not defending NZ and there record.Who`s going to be this year`s giant killers .Theres always on thoughts anyone?

I'm backing Ireland as the giant killers making it quite far but ending ultimately in NZ winning the cup.

I somehow don't think Ireland are Giant killers, as being ranked number 4 in the world doesn't dictate a minnow team. I would suggest a giant killer is a team that does not have a professional club/franchise structure.

I also doubt whether there will be any serious upsets in this RWC, simply because teams have now learnt after 16 years of professional rugby how to prepare for these events.

The only upset I see is if my team doesn't do well in this RWC.

For me that is reaching a semi final against NZ and putting up a fight even though I doubt we have the skills to beat NZ.

One thing I do know though, even without the necessary skills and a debatable gameplan that is very predictable the one thing we will have is the determination and drive that is standard issue mentality for SA rugby players.

biltongbek wrote:I somehow don't think Ireland are Giant killers, as being ranked number 4 in the world doesn't dictate a minnow team. I would suggest a giant killer is a team that does not have a professional club/franchise structure.

I also doubt whether there will be any serious upsets in this RWC, simply because teams have now learnt after 16 years of professional rugby how to prepare for these events.

The only upset I see is if my team doesn't do well in this RWC.

For me that is reaching a semi final against NZ and putting up a fight even though I doubt we have the skills to beat NZ.

One thing I do know though, even without the necessary skills and a debatable gameplan that is very predictable the one thing we will have is the determination and drive that is standard issue mentality for SA rugby players.

Yea fair enough. Well outside of that then its Samoa for me followed by Argentina and then Tonga and Fiji.

Taylorman wrote:Fair call too PJ...winding up us Kiwis like that... just not cricket is it!

Well seeing as I'm "English" and used to getting stick from all sides, I do feel a certain level of sympathy..... nope I'm OK now.

I am extremely envious of NZ's record both in terms of the win percentage and also the manner in which the overwhelming majority of those wins have been achieved, I think most right-minded people would feel that way.

I guess you have to expect a little bit of stick when you're at the top of the pile - consider yourselves lucky I say, you could be English and get stick for being at the bottom, middle or top of the pile.

All the best for October - but I doubt you'll need it.