Looking Back: 1996 At Athletic Park- All Blacks on Fire In The Wet
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By Paul Montague
There’s a series up on Sportsfreak right now (Looking Back) dedicated to sporting memories. We’ve naturally all got loads but thanks to one of Sky Sports’ nice dips into the archives, on this occasion from 1996, I think I’ve found one for me that pushed all the right buttons.
Firstly, here’s the home team that took the field (it was on Athletic Park): Cullen, Wilson, Bunce, Little, Lomu, Mehrtens, Marshall, Z Brooke, Kronfeld, I Jones, R Brooke, M Jones, Brown, Fitzpatrick, Dowd. When that team came up on the screen I realised I was watching one of the greatest All Blacks sides of all-time. It was the 1996 Tri Nations and Bledisloe Cup test versus the dastardly Wallabies.
If that All Blacks line-up had access to all the scientific developments across professional sport now, I’m pretty confident no other team could live with them for very long (except maybe France- on one of their almost unexplainably amazing days they have in rugby every 15-20 years or so- usually against us). And South Africa of 2019 World Cup vintage- but only if the Boks got parity in the forwards.
The Wallabies passed the ball around in a couple of drills in between trying not to seize up from the biting cold during the Haka. But they might have reconsidered in hindsight. Because as John Eales related in his documentary on the Haka a bit over a year ago- his team were almost condemned from that second on.
And I almost doubt if Jonah just about ever played a better match- apart from a certain 1995 World Cup semi-final (Sydney in 1995 was also another tour de force). Every time the big guy got the ball on Athletic Park he headed straight into a cluster of frozen Wallabies, sucking the life out of them like a boxer getting constantly pounded in the midriff.
And the handling; wow that was something else. I’ve hardly seen teams pass and catch the ball that well before even in DRY weather. Most of the tries were stupendous for the conditions. In the ‘60s, before Fred Allen almost overnight changed the way the All Blacks played, and in conditions much more agreeable than that day on Athletic Park in ‘96, test teams used to just plug the touchlines and convene for lineout after lineout. Take a look at the full coverage from some really old videos and you’ll see.
Another recollection, but nothing to do with the actual action of the game, was the girlfriend I had at the time. She happened to be one of those people who was derisive of almost every thing about sport- in light of that it’s practically a miracle we lasted as long as we did (about a year).
About every five minutes ‘Debsy’ (a slight variation on her real name) would proclaim “Oh look at all those silly men running around after the ball. Really, what’s the point…why don’t they just give them all one each.” This refrain repeated about five times got very, very tiresome as you might imagine. We were at my parents’ home watching it and I think my father may have asked me to either ask her to be quiet at halftime or get out. And fair enough.
At least unlike my aunt about ten years before that, Debsy didn’t ask which colour New Zealand were playing in; on that occasion we weren’t even playing at home against Scotland with the change of jerseys. There was absolutely no excuse for that sacrilege…
In any case, that 1996 Athletic Park test match against Australia- mark it down as one of the greatest All Blacks’ performances of the last century.
@pm_spotter/ talltree@xtra.co.nz (Paul)
I was at that game, in the low stand at the southern end. The worst conditions in which I’ve watched live rugby. I’d played in some rough Wellington weather but that day was something else.
Abiding memory apart from the dreadful weather is the quality of the All Black handling – possibly one of the best days that magic backline had together.
That Wallaby side was a good side – stacked with good players – but the All Blacks played so well that day, Australia didn’t get a look in.
I loved coming across this article because even though it’s almost 30 years on, there are a handful of All Black performances I will never forget and this is at the top of the list. I was 13 years old (prime All Blacks fan age in 96) and I remember watching this on the push-button television in my bedroom, sitting on the floor up against my bed, probably about 80cm from the rounded screen.
My recollection of the game today is exactly the same – until my grave I will tell anyone this was the best rugby I have ever seen played relative to the conditions and even then that might not matter (even though it has to and does). I remember watching in amazement as the team flew around the mud bowl of Athletic park and seemingly making not a single handling error (ironically they did on the tip of Mehrtens opening kick-off – but that was it) as the first half ended 25-6, 4 tries to nil and basically an unheard of halftime score in that era. It was just overall dominance – 2 tries coming from the backline, 2 from the forwards including the set play magic of Marshall inside to Zinny for the 4th, and the most incredible thing? They did all of this playing INTO the howling gale that meant Merhtens – one of the longest place kickers of a ball I’ve still ever seen, couldn’t get the ball to cross the goal line on many of his conversion attempts because the wind simply made it physically impossible.
The second half was comparatively a “let down” – though hardly in honest reflection. “Only” two tries, a few more handling errors (however the conditions had completely gone to the dogs by now) and of course no Wallaby points. The end score of course 43-6 – again an unheard of margin of victory in that era of rugby by a team legitimately twenty years ahead of it’s time – with it’s lighter, mobile pack that worked in tandem with the crucial bulletproof midfield of Bunce and Little that meant teams could simply never get the ball wide on us and left Messrs Wilson, Cullen and Lomu almost unfatigued and primed to run riot on them when they had the ball.
Some sporting performances you just never forget and I am with you on this one. Despite the catalogue of astounding AB wins over the years, nothing can and will top this one.
Hi there Jason, hey thanks for those excellent comments- it’s actually a really good analysis right there within what you wrote! And I can imagine at age 13 it was even a bit more magical. I remember a memorable win over the Wallabies at Eden Park in 1982 when I was twelve- think I even remember some tears welling up when the Wallabies looked the better team for a good while and took the lead near halftime in that game! But then we had a storming 2nd half and Allan Hewson broke the individual record for points scored in a top-tier test. All’s well that ended well! And as for that ’96 test, i agree- it has to be one of the ABs’ best-ever performances. Certainly over the past 50 years, if not more.