Chris Rattue: All Whites should be careful what they wish for

Be careful what you wish for, as the old saying goes.

Or how about, "be afraid, very afraid".

Our gallant All Whites rode into Bahrain on some Fifa-supplied lady luck and had to ride the same nag for all it was worth to limp out of the Manama heat with their World Cup finals qualification hopes still intact.

Slight but skilful Bahrain, the world's 64th-ranked side despite living in a goal-scoring desert, should have crushed Ricki Herbert's combo of wide-ranging abilities.

The All Whites, brave and true, were left dripping in hope but that puddle might turn out to be more mirage than oasis.

The events of the game, rather than the score, made you ponder this: there will be a mighty song and dance if New Zealand qualify for the World Cup finals in South Africa, as there should be, yet it could turn out to be a poisoned chalice.

What if they get there, only to be hammered? It's impossible to envisage the All Whites whom we saw in Manama living on the same planet as the world's best soccer sides.

The heat of Bahrain will be nothing compared with the blowtorch that would await the All Whites in South Africa.

Bahrain - hardly a world soccer power - missed five gilt-edged scoring chances in the second half alone, not to mention their beanpole defender Sayed Mohamed Adnan's excellent free kick which ended up a lot closer to the crossbar than it did to goalkeeper Mark Paston.

The misses from the tricky Hussain Ali Ahmed and Salman Isa were absolute howlers while Paston's excellent work and an Adnan hoof saved them on the other occasions.

The nil-all score doesn't suggest this, but the experiment of playing Leo Bertos as the right-sided defender was close to a disaster. He was a metre away from where he needed to be almost all game, and Bahrain went through his area three times in the first seven minutes alone, with Hussain Ali his chief tormentor.

Take a break from trying to twist the tongue around the various Mohameds and Alis in the Bahrain side, and insert much more familiar sounds, like Wayne and Rooney and Frank and Lampard.

There are many, many footballers with far less generous streaks in front of goal and a lot of them will be in South Africa, ready to calm their nerves by shredding a side like NZ.

There will also be many sides boasting the world's best professionals, rather than players from the Gulf's football backwaters, with far more ability and power than Bahrain to create those chances.

Avoiding a couple of the superpowers in the group play will be a lot harder than getting to South Africa.

The extended exploits of the 1982 team continue to echo during this ridiculously short campaign, and it is easy to forget just how canny, tough and experienced that side was. It took all their heart and expertise to simply hold the world's leading sides to respectable scorelines.

At the moment, we have one world-class defender in Ryan Nelsen, who is also excellent at coming forward. Tony Lochhead is adequate, Ben Sigmund is wonderfully determined but also awkward and inexperienced, and Ivan Vicelich is past his elegant prime. As for fullback Bertos, he could get eaten alive in the finals.

The big problem is, going on the good oil from Bahrain, that in front of this assortment sits an almost non-existent midfield, especially in terms of being able to hold the ball and construct any attack. Tim Brown was hardly sighted, and Simon Elliott static although he did combine with Bertos and Chris Wood to release the wingback late in the game.

The stars of the show for my money were keeper Paston, Nelsen, and big centre forward Rory Fallon, who had a free reign in the air, worked back well to collect the ball in the midfield and showed a couple of nice touches.

Around that, though, there was scant to admire apart from the odd good contribution from the front men including giant teenager Chris Wood.

Herbert surely has to find room in his starting side for Michael McGlinchey. His energy and class showed out immediately on replacing Brown, and emphasised where Brown and Elliott are lacking.

If the All Whites can't get a bit more going on in their midfield, by changing the formation or players, then Bahrain and any others will be able to lay siege to Nelsen and his fragile column.

Maybe we just don't have the necessary players - an almost inevitable conclusion - a situation which is starting to make the prospect of South Africa as much frightening as exciting because you can only be as strong as the weakest link at this level.

McGlinchey, on what we saw on Sunday morning, looks as though he could belong on the World Cup finals stage, but he wouldn't have any midfield mates up there.

The common call on Herbert's selection for the Bahrain match was that he had tried to get all of his best players on the park, irrespective of formations, but McGlinchey was forgotten about in that regard.

It's hard to be definitive about the former Scottish junior international on this brief showing, and far easier to simply say that he showed enough to know he must get a starting chance.

On a similar note, forcing Bertos to send in crosses from the deep - they were notably ineffective against Bahrain - is a waste of his ability to challenge defences.

The return game on November 14 in Wellington could and probably should be about more than simply trying to qualify although Herbert and his troops won't see it that way, and in fairness to them they probably can't afford to do so.

But the All Whites need to start putting together a game that will allow them to compete - which means not losing by too much - in South Africa.

Apart from that, it will be over to New Zealand Football to get tough preparatory matches for the team should they qualify.

It is easily forgotten that a big part of the famous 1982 All Whites' campaign, one that earned them a fair degree of respect in the finals in Spain, involved vital lead-up games against teams like Watford.

On what we saw over the weekend though, and with the away-goal rule now against them, it's hard to be confident of New Zealand's chances.

Bahrain, it has to be said, look by far the more worthy finals team with one important exception - they are absolutely rubbish in front of goal.

If Bahrain get as many chances as in Manama though, it's inevitable that even they will eventually find the net.

* * *

There is a fabulous ad campaign out there and it has nothing to do with the manufacturers of junk food or over-priced toys who love to latch on to the world's most famous athletes.

I'm referring to the breast-cancer awareness campaign, signified by the colour pink, which has popped up everywhere, from cricket bat handles to the soles of American football players' boots.

I have read that American rodeo is even in on the act with a pink campaign to raise greenbacks. American baseballers have also got pink bats.

American sport is doggedly clean when it comes to advertising, preserving the integrity of the playing surface and uniforms.

But the NFL has opened its arms to the breast-cancer campaign, with splashes of pink all over teams this month. Breast cancer is a sadly too common and brutal disease, and sport is playing a big part in urging women to have annual screenings and making everyone aware of the problem.

I don't know who the people are behind the campaign, and how orchestrated it is. But they have all done a fantastic job and sport has also played its part.

* * *

So Jacob Oram has hung up his crutches and quit test cricket to prolong his one-day career. Some of us thought he already had, unofficially.

Anyway, money is undoubtedly part of the consideration, and as much as I'd like to, it's hard to blame him for that. Playing test cricket is hardly a glamorous or overly lucrative deal in this country. What a lot of us always wanted to know is: how bad were those Oram injuries, and could he have played on for the cause?

But the fact is, five-day test cricket is no place for hobblers. The verdict on Oram's test career is easy: potential unfulfilled. He really could bowl at a frustrating pace and excellent line on his day and in the right conditions, and he hit the ball almost as sweetly as anyone. His test averages are in Chris Cairns country, but 33 tests aren't quite enough to talk about him in the same breath as our finest slugger, who was also an excellent wicket taker.