Another All Black choke
By MARC HINTON - RugbyHeaven | Saturday, 29 December 2007
Another All Black choke - Rugby news & coverage - Stuff.co.nz


Year in Review – All Blacks: Another classic choke, referee sabotage or just a coach’s master plan gone awry – whatever way you look at it 80 lousy minutes at a seething Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on October 7 defined the All Blacks’ test season in 2007.

That meant, sadly and contrary to what some would have you believe, that the All Blacks’ year was an unadulterated failure. To suggest otherwise is to embrace such a state of myopia that you simply cannot be helped.

How else can you sum up a season that ended with the All Blacks’ worst ever performance at a World Cup – the aforementioned 18-20 quarter-final defeat to a distinctly average French side (though, once again, certain in the national fraternity would have you believe otherwise)?

Never before had a New Zealand side exited at that stage of the global extravaganza. Even the dysfunctional mob of 1991 made it as far as the semifinals before being outplayed by David Campese and co.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been a brilliant French outfit that had played the game of their lives, as Christophe Dominici and co did that afternoon at Twickenham back in 1999’s World Cup semifinal classic.

But there can be no escaping that the All Blacks bowed out against one of the worst French teams in World Cup history.

All Les Bleus contributed that evening in Cardiff was a heroic defensive performance.

So ineffective were they in the battle for the ball they could not even win a third of territory and possession.

All told this French team lost three times at the World Cup (twice to Argentina and once to England) and to paint their upset in Cardiff as some sort of virtuoso performance is to do a grave injustice to actual reality.

But still the All Blacks lost after waltzing through their cream-puff pool with contemptuous ease.

In fact many believe therein lay one of the major factors that contributed to the latest in a long line of World Cup ignominies.

Their pool was so easy, such a lay-down misere, that when confronted with the first real hint of defiance, not to mention defence, Richie McCaw and company simply had no answers. It was gut-wrenching stuff.

Coach Graham Henry apparently made much of the part played by English referee Wayne Barnes in the defeat when his year was reviewed. And he must have convinced someone for, against the predictions of most pundits, he managed to retain his job.

If the All Blacks’ quarter-final defeat was the shock of the year, then Henry’s reappointment must run it a close second - accountability apparently out the window at the NZRU in favour of continuity.

Henry’s painting of Barnes as the villain of the piece was pathetically simplistic and ignored the greater truth. The All Blacks had such dominance, no amount of refereeing incompetence should have been able to undermine them.

But Barnes certainly did. To be fair to Henry, the insipid Englishman did have a shocker, missing a blatant forward pass in the leadup to France’s second try, sinbinning Luke McAlister in a decision that was dubious at best and also failing to award a second-half penalty against France, despite Bernard Laporte’s side being under the cosh pretty much throughout.

But much more than the bumbling Barnes, the All Blacks were their own worst enemies. Their tactics were naive, one-dimensional and at times gormless, and they ignored numerous opportunities to take dropped goals when they had ideal field position and to get their noses back in front was by far the most sensible option.

The All Blacks individually did not have poor matches that night in Cardiff. The forwards established almost utter domination and they created enough opportunities to win by 20 points or more.

But collectively and tactically they were extremely average and the backs, with the possible exception of McAlister, lacked the penetration that the flow of the game demanded.

Also, a couple of Henry’s key strategies – in fact pretty much the only ones – proved to be, at best, ineffective.

His reconditioning programme, which torpedoed the Super 14, was aimed specifically at having All Blacks in peak fitness and form for the World Cup. It was a patent failure.

Having waltzed through a series of mismatches in pool play (a 40-0 defeat of Scotland’s second string lineup the closest they came to a decent match), the All Blacks arrived at the Cardiff quarter a long way from their best.

Henry’s second ‘R’, the cursed rotation, which he carried right through to the bitter end, also missed the mark. It was supposed to build depth, to leave the All Blacks immune to a key injury or two and also to keep gas in the tank of key individuals. It achieved none of the above.

Instead the defections, both before and during the game, of Keven Mealamu, Sione Lauaki, Dan Carter, Nick Evans, Dan Carter and Jerry Collins left the All Blacks, by match’s end, a rabble. Skip McCaw, who along with Carter had a pretty ordinary World Cup, apparently carried an injury into the match and by its end faced serious questions about his leadership under pressure.

Henry also dropped some selection clangers, nowhere more obviously than his ill-fated decision to play star fullback Mils Muliaina at centre. For the third straight time moving 15 into 13 came back to haunt the All Blacks at a key juncture of the Cup. There were also the omissions of cool heads Aaron Mauger and Doug Howlett and the decision to start Keith Robinson ahead of Chris jack that have since been questioned. We will never know the part they played in proceedings.

It was the most disappointing of World Cups for the All Blacks. In fact, if there’s an enduring image of the New Zealanders’ campaign it’s of them frolicking round in the pool or sea in a series of leisure activities. This wrongly placed emphasis summed up the whole shebang.

Still, there were some other matches in 2007, even if – as South Africa and England showed demonstrably – they were largely irrelevant in World Cup year.

The All Blacks produced a fine second half to secure an always valued 26-21 win in Durban, then after dropping the Bledisloe opener in Melbourne, clinched that and the Tri-Nations with an outstanding finish to over-run the Wallabies 26-12 in Auckland.

Earlier there had been two record romps over an embarrassingly inept French ‘C’ side and a spluttering victory over Canada in Hamilton.

No, all told it was a year when South African coach Jake White got the equation just right, from his mid-Tri-Nations break, to his crucial addition of Eddie Jones as a coaching offsider, through to his decision to pretty much play his best team whenever he could at the Cup.

Even then the Boks got a helping hand from Henry, whose reconditioning programme handed the Super 14, and a massive amount of early momentum and confidence, to the South Africans.

Whatever way you look at it, it was not a vintage year for the All Blacks.