So the All Blacks aren’t invincible
As a foretaste of what lies ahead over the next four weeks, Australia’s shock win over New Zealand in Hong Kong on Saturday has served to put all northern hemisphere opposition on red alert.
The Bledisloe Cup was an outstanding contest that featured players on both sides who hadn’t played any competitive rugby for well over a month. What will they be like when they are more battle hardened?
Off the field it seems the clubs of Ireland have had enough and are on a collision course with the IRFU over the vexed issue of international tickets. Forced to pay up in full within three days of an international or be stripped of their future ticket allocation should they have the temerity to return them to the union, it appears that the clubs are on the brink of revolt with sufficient numbers ready to force an EGM on the issue. To do so requires a minimum of 25 of the 49 senior clubs. Present indications suggest they will have no difficulty in assembling that number.
With tickets for South Africa and even the New Zealand game proving difficult to shift, one can only imagine the grief the clubs face in trying to move their quota for Samoa and Argentina. Too many clubs took a financial hit on the ticket front last season and quite rightly are not prepared to cough up again. It is my understanding that the clubs will return their unsold allocation to the Union this week. Should the IRFU decide to charge the individual clubs for those or withdraw their allocation for the Six Nations, then an EGM looks certain to be called by the clubs.
With the message finally getting through to corporate headquarters, it is understood that the IRFU is to review their position in a meeting taking place this morning.
Meanwhile back to activities on the field of play. While Australia’s win will not be welcomed with any great enthusiasm in the Irish camp, given that they meet in the pool stage of next year’s World Cup, what the Wallabies victory has done is scupper the notion that the All Blacks are invincible. Seeking to beat minnows Lithuania’s record of eighteen test wins on the trot on this tour – they had managed fifteen on the bounce up to Saturday – one of New Zealand’s tour goals has already been scuppered. The Wallabies, ironically under former All Black Robbie Deans, have made steady progress; introducing a raft of promising young players, while not always achieving the results that their performances deserved.
This victory, their first over New Zealand after ten straight defeats, will work wonders for confidence. Wales may well feel the brunt of that in Cardiff next Saturday. It also re-emphasises the point that the team with the greater hunger and desire always have a chance if the opposition are less than 100% tuned in for battle.
That is bad news for the four home countries who all face Richie McCaw’s side over the next four weekends. They will be stung by this. What it did show once again is that New Zealand are vulnerable when Dan Carter is off the field. When he was forced off injured in the second half of the RWC quarter-final against France in 2007, New Zealand had nobody with the game management skills to retrieve a dangerous situation and were eliminated.
Since then Graham Henry has searched in vain for serious cover at out half. His most promising option Nick Evans decamped to Harlequins two seasons ago and is badly missed. This season, long time understudy Stephen Donald was ditched during the Tri Nations campaign in favour of young promising options in Aaron Cruden and Colin Slade who both featured when Carter was recovering from ankle surgery when they last played Australia in August.
For some reason both were deemed surplus to requirements for this tour as Donald was recalled. Yet when presented with the opportunity to close out this test, the Waikato Chief, who replaced Carter on sixty minutes, was found wanting when he first missed a kickable penalty and even worse, failed to find touch with the match clock already in the red with what should have been the last play of the game. Australia scored a brilliant try by James O Connor from the resultant phase and the wonder kid went on to win the game with his touchline conversion. Given that Australia has missed a number of kickable penalties throughout the game nobody could begrudge them their success.
NEW ZEALAND will be stung with this defeat and will seek redemption in the only way they know how – beat their next opposition. That will be England, who themselves are in confident mood after beating Australia in the last test of their summer tour, in Twickenham next Saturday. Deep down I don’t think Graham Henry will be too displeased with the outcome of their fourth encounter with Australia in as many months – no wonder they looked slightly bored at times on Saturday. It now gives them a renewed focus for their Grand Slam tour of Britain and Ireland and achieving that will be the only source of redemption before they head back home. Henry will also claim, as a result of this reversal, that one year out from the World Cup they are still very much a work in progress, killing suggestions that once again they have reached a peak twelve months in advance of the global event.
Elsewhere the Springboks named their tour squad over the weekend and will be missing a number of seasoned campaigners due to injury including world cup winning captain John Smit, Fourie du Preez, Andres Bekker, Heinrick Brussow, JP Pieterson, Jacque Fourie and Gurthro Steenkamp.
Ireland aren’t the only ones with issues on that front. More on that in Wednesday’s paper.
