James Mortimer - (22/12/2011)
Coming into the World Cup, the most intrigue beyond the host nation’s ability to break a 20-year losing drought, would be how team’s tactics would shift in a tournament that had proven – from an All Blacks perspective at least – notoriously difficult to win.
Every stone had been unturned by the All Blacks for over two decades, but the reality is that specific tournaments throughout revealed World Cup truisms that have become unbreakable tenets eventual winners have had to heed.
By and large.
Key moments defined each World Cup.
In 1991 it was proven the importance of shifting and altering tactics, even if ironically it wasn’t shown in any conventional terms, as it came from the loser of the second quadrennial tournament’s final.
The Wallabies, a burgeoning power that benefitted from a tough examination from the Irish to down the All Blacks in the semi-final, faced host's England in the final.
Yet despite showing their stoic forward game was hard to beat, grinding down all in Europe to win that season’s Five Nations, they played into the Wallabies hands by playing expansively, an approach that the Australians were far more adept at applying.
Had England tied the World Champions-elect down up front, the Northern Hemisphere could have claimed their first global title 12 years earlier.
World Cup maxim number one – Always rely on what you know best.
In 1995 the All Blacks could have won the tournament, but on this occasion two new laws were introduced to the World Cup list of commandments.
The first was one was revealed with growing power as South Africans began to embrace the World Cup despite the old ghosts of apartheid, and hit a compelling crescendo prior to the final, when the Madiba, Nelson Mandela, came out in a Springboks jersey and committed an gesture that many believed was the single most prudent act to unite the ‘Rainbow Nation’.
World Cup maxim number two – Home support can make you nearly unbeatable.
This was proven this year, as the moniker of the 'Stadium of Four Million' came to life in a manner that would have exceeded the wildest dreams of the pioneers of New Zealand’s bid, men such as Jock Hobbs and the tournament’s Field General Martin Sneddon.
Such support could paradoxically have been the undermining factor behind previous World Cup bids, as this can amount to a stifling amount of pressure, but there was little doubt that the All Blacks had points in the bank every time they ran out onto the field.
Even that fearsome changeling that is Les Bleus couldn’t break that support on the glorious day in October.
Back to South Africa, the All Blacks also learned to their peril that no matter how destructive your primary weapon is – a.k.a. Jonah Lomu – any offensive system no matter how awesome can be shut down.
The Springboks didn’t just use the emotion of a nation to win their maiden World Cup, they shut down New Zealand’s primary source of power, and ultimately you need more than one bullet to win the Webb Ellis Cup.
Even if that bullet was 1.96m and still over 120kg when lean.
World Cup maxim number three – Always have a plan B.
A further three emerged in 1999, as the French epitomised a host of clichés that would earn the direst wrath of any coach.
The most prudent is that it takes 80 minutes to win a test match, not 44, the same time that Jonah Lomu scored his 15th and final try in his World Cup career (a record that still stands today) to give the All Blacks a comfortable 24-10 lead over France in that World Cup’s semi-final.
The French then scored 33 unanswered points in just 28 minutes to stun the All Blacks 43-31.
Were the All Blacks complacent, or casting their eyes to the final?
World Cup maxim number four – Don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched.
The Wallabies provided another, with one of the most balanced World Cup teams on display in history going all the way, even if we were denied the purist’s final between New Zealand and Australia in the penultimate year before the rare close of a millennium.
Yet if the tarot card reading of that potential matchup was predicted, the most recent trans-Tasman match, the Wallabies biggest ever win, 28-7 over the All Blacks (in Sydney prior to the 1999 World Cup), would have had John Eales troops bullish.
It didn’t matter if Australia was slicing up a (according to the Emerald Isle' media at the time) one-dimensional Ireland via their backline, silencing the crowd with beating Wales in their own backyard, or taking on the Springboks during a high stakes kicking duel.
Equilibrium and poise would describe a team that may have still had something of an Achilles heel up front, but never was it pounced on by the opposition while the Wallaby strengths such as a glamour backline and plenty of rugby smarts won them their second crown.
World Cup maxim number five – Make sure you have more than one winning hand.
The English and Springboks both revealed what appeared to be the most elementary of World Cup winning personalities.
The blueprint under Sir Clive Woodward was so beautiful in it’s simplicity that many of the Red Rose fraternity’s frustration have come from the inability to achieve it since.
Jake White and John Smit didn’t stride into France like some unbeatable colossus, and surely it was some form of rugby heresy that a team that had 'sacrificed' the Tri Nations to win the World Cup could etch themselves as two-time holders.
But it was a World Cup winning approach, and bearing loose resemblance to the machine of England it emerged.
Added with some cunning interplay thanks to Eddie Jones, the compelling and lethal aerial attack led by the peerless Victor Matfield, and the hard nosed captaincy of John Smit backed by the most experienced South African test team of all time, the South Africans won title number two.
World Cup maxim number six – Experience counts in the cauldron.
Pragmatism, the ability to win ugly, and all other unattractive labels assist in narrowing the fine line between success and failure, and to borrow to quote every rugby coach, lowering the percentages in rugby basics such as ruling the ruck count and taking your set pieces will always help you win.
World Cup / Rugby / Sport / Life / etc maxim number one – Do the basics well.
The All Blacks class of 2011 brought all of these characteristics to the table, and added with the obvious aid of form and a strong statistical record over eight years, were as well equipped as possible to win the World Cup.
Factors such as Richie McCaw’s foot or the Plague like "Ring a Ring o' Roses" ailment struck upon the All Blacks first five-eighths have been well discussed.
At the semi-final, the All Blacks defeated one maxim, punished the Wallabies for not following one, while creating a new etching on the stone of World Cup law, although it is one that is so rudimentary it almost seems embarrassing to say it aloud.
Australia appeared to have made a conscious decision to follow a World Cup lesson and play a safe game with as little risk as possible, but erred in not scripting to another, as one of the most dangerous attacking teams in the game went into their shell to ensure that few errors – dare I say it, another chestnut – to minimise risk of losing the game.
Was not the first maxim to rely on what you know best?
Such is the pressure of test rugby, let alone World Cups (and notwithstanding any sport in existence), that many a team has tried to not lose a game.
Often the more prudent plan is to win a match.
However the All Blacks created the most Jurassic aphorism of all.
World Cup winning maxim seven – Je ne sais quoi?
I don’t know what?
That intangible quality…
Personally I still haven’t grasped what exactly the All Blacks did when they defeated France 8-7 to win their second World Cup.
All the above boxes were ticked.
Their belief lay rooted in the first law, playing to what they knew best, while having home support, a plan B, they didn’t count their chickens before they were hatched, they had more than one winning hand, they had experience that counted in the cauldron, they did the basics well, while they had something that we else we just couldn’t define.
How apt we label that with the haunting elegance of the French language.
Pressure (and fear perhaps of that awful word choke) drove the All Blacks to conquer the world and prove correct many of the natural laws that have helped many a team and nation win a World Championship.
Fascination, even with a 46-month wait, comes with predicting how such theories play out as England gears up for World Cup number eight.
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