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So it all ends in tears, much to the shock of a nation. The NZRU response is to launch an Official Review, presumably as an alternative to the normal lynch mob approach. Got a problem?? Throw money at it; $NZ50 Million was spent on the overall campaign, according to the Otago Daily Times, so why not chuck some more after the event to find out what went wrong. But what can that uncover that hasn’t been raised on this site? Several months ago in fact. The sad thing about this exit is its inevitability and its avoidability. Lessons not learned, and some experiments that were clearly flawed: If it ain’t broke.. For 3 years the All Blacks were the best side going around by a mile. Match fit, cohesive, and decisive. At last we had a side to win the World Cup after all the previous mistakes. But oh no, the coach got clever and totally changed his strategy for 2007. Rest and Recreation When Graham Henry said after the defeat that the players “had trained hard all the way through” you wondered why he couldn’t spot the deafening irony. No amount of training, or warm-up games against the Christchurch Police force was ever going to prepare the players from type of tackle Jerry Collins suffered yesterday, which eventually forced him to leave the field. And no amount of white-board sessions or time on the couch can prepare a side tactically for the challenge the All Blacks faced in the last 10 minutes when they blatantly froze in the headlights. They were simply not match-fit.
When used properly, rotation was a good policy. It did develop depth in some positions, and on easy-beat tours of the northern hemisphere worked a treat in terms of keeping players fresh. But it did have its weaknesses; one because it was never tried fully, and the other because it was tried for too long. Sportsfreak has previously noted that the rotation policy was half-hearted. While it did produce depth on some positions, it was never really tried in earnest in the loose forward or #10 positions. This meant that Carter always started in the big tests, and resulted in the selection panel’s reluctance to leave him out of this game, despite the fact that he was so clearly injured. The rotation also meant that for 3 years we never had the same midfield in consecutive tests. Add that to a bizarre last minute about-face in selection for the Complacency That’s right, once more the All Blacks were complacent. Any denial of this in the Official Review will consign future All Black campaigns to more of this humiliation. Here are four blatant examples. Picking a clearly unfit Keith Robinson for the quarter final with the logic that he needed to be match hardened for the “games to follow”. Complacency mixed with arrogance, and motivation for the opposition. Unbelievable. Note that Sportsfreak does not attribute any of the blame to the pre-tournament holiday in Corsica or the weird stunt of shipping a pile of dirt over to France for some unknown purpose. Although it is tempting…. Dan Carter’s causal cross-filed kick from inside his 22 towards the end of the first half. Premature showing off. An obvious lack of analysis into the French strengths and weaknesses. For a side that had so much coaching input, you could have expected some appreciation of the opposition, rather than totally relying on your own efforts. The contrast in passion between New Zealand and the French side, who was under so much pressure and criticism from home… Did the players actually believe the predictions from the likes of Mains and Fox that this would be a 30 point drubbing? Bizarre Selection It almost seemed like a hoax. The most well-publicised stuff-up theme of the last 2 World Cups was the curious decision to play a full-back at centre. So we get to the knock-out stage here, and what do we do??? Unbelievable really. This has the double effect of producing an even less coherent backline than normal, and robbing us of our most effective counter-attacking weapon against a team who was always going to be kicking it deep. So there you have it; this is what any decent review will find. And a lot cheaper too. Jock, Chris and Steve; please send the cheque to statetheobvious@sportsfreak.co.nz. And Steve, please don’t put it in the wrong envelope this time around.
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