Aaron Smith of New Zealand celebrates his try. Rugby World Cup France 2023, New Zealand All Blacks v Italy, Pool A match at OL Stadium, Lyon, France on Friday 29 September 2023. Mandatory credit: Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz
Aaron Smith of New Zealand celebrates his try. Rugby World Cup France 2023, New Zealand All Blacks v Italy, Pool A match at OL Stadium, Lyon, France on Friday 29 September 2023. Mandatory credit: Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz
All Blacks 96 Italy 17
Gregor Paul in Lyon
The All Blacks will have settled a few nerves back in New Zealand and set plenty jangling around the world after delivering a performance that said the bear is sick of being poked and is now very much awake and angry.
This idea of the All Blacks sitting behind the three favoured contenders of Ireland, France and South Africa will have to be revised as there are little pieces of what was once known as the Italian rugby team scattered all over Lyon to suggest that’s not true at all.
New Zealand are at the top table of the world game. They are in France as a genuine contender and they produced 80 minutes of destructive, accurate, controlled and quite brilliant rugby to prove it.
Italy are supposedly the real deal these days and they caused France and Ireland all sorts of problems in this year’s Six Nations.
But New Zealand obliterated them. They crushed them physically and then subjected them to the sort of aerobic contest they had almost zero ability to withstand.
It was merciless – the sort of annihilation that will psychologically scar the Italians for years to come and will no doubt lead to Ireland coach Andy Farrell waking up in the middle of the night a few times in the next week or so, his heart racing, palms sweating while he fears that once again, his team are going to run into an All Blacks side that is now operating at full noise.
What will be worrying Farrell and everyone else, is that this performance felt like All Blacks 2.0.
This felt like a team turning up with a big point to prove. The All Blacks played like they were angry – but not red-head angry.
It was a deep, cold, controlled, blue-head anger that they mustered. The sort that said the motivation to win this tournament lies deep in the pit of their stomachs and that they have spent the past two weeks furiously getting their house in order having been shown up in their opening loss.
Every bit of their game that didn’t quite work against France was fixed and this was classic All Blacks – analysing their previous faults in micro detail, identifying where they went wrong and then coming up with the improvements required.
Everything on their checklist was ticked. The scrummaging was sensational. So powerful, so disciplined and so effective at sending a message.
The lineout was immaculate. The return of Shannon Frizell gave more options and the timing was spot on, while so too was the All Blacks defensive aerial work outstanding.
Shannon Frizell won several lineouts against Italy. Photo / Photosport
The driving maul was unstoppable and their defence of Italy’s vaunted equivalent just as good. It was tick, tick, tick.
And then there was the accuracy of their tackling. Body heights were perfect and the Italians were hit hard. Another big tick.
Shock-horror, they got their discipline under control, conceding just two penalties in the first half and seven in total.
The critics could say the penalty count was only low because the All Blacks had so much possession and were under so little pressure – but that’s kind of the point, that’s how good teams get their discipline under control. They keep the ball, use it well and put pressure on the opposition.
More proof of how much they have learned came in the way the ball carriers were more dynamic, but the cleaners even more so.
The stats from the first two rounds showed that the defensive team is winning 60 per cent of the turnover penalties and hence the All Blacks had two people over the ball in a flash so they could protect possession and play their continuity game.
And boy did they play it. It was quite beautiful at times, the way the runners stayed straight, the passing was so accurate, the players so calm and certain about where they were going.
Aaron Smith dives to score a try. Photo / Photosport
It was an open-play masterclass from the All Blacks – definitive evidence of how, when they get the foundation of their game right, they can be so magically creative.
It was rugby that people wanted to see and rugby that can be virtually unstoppable, and it may prove to be a turning point in this tournament, not just for the All Blacks, but for the romantics, too.
Up until now, it had been a World Cup ruled by the conservatives. Those not willing to risk anything at all were being amply rewarded, to such an extent that England, offering nothing but box kicks and driving mauls, were being talked up as possible winners.
But the All Blacks have not only forced the world to reconsider who might go on to win this thing, so too have they raised the possibility that this tournament may yet belong to the adventurous.
The speed and intensity with which the All Blacks played was breathtaking.
Italy stood no chance of resisting the irresistible and the tournament may now have found an alternative tactical blueprint – one that may yet see the All Blacks go deeper into this tournament than many have been forecasting.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
