All Blacks v Namibia result: Ethan de Groot red card casts a dark cloud over confidence restoring match

Ethan de Groot of New Zealand leaves the field after a yellow card. Rugby World Cup France 2023, New Zealand All Blacks v Namibia pool match at Stadium de Toulouse, Toulouse, France on Friday 8 September 2023. Mandatory credit: Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz

Gregor Paul in Toulouse

As an exercise in cheering the nation up, the All Blacks’ annihilation of Namibia at the Rugby World Cup proved entirely satisfying and bang on brief.

It was a nice little confidence restorer: an 80-minute chance to strut around the playground and pocket a bit of lunch money by doing nothing other than looking a bit hard.

Ethan de Groot made the mistake of taking his role as the schoolyard bully too seriously and was red-carded for a high tackle that may have pronounced consequences for him and the All Blacks given that he’ll inevitably be facing a suspension.

His sending-off cast quite the dark cloud over what was otherwise a reasonably happy night for the All Blacks who would feel they got just about all they wanted from the game.

Ethan de Groot leaves the field after a yellow card that was later upgraded to a red. Photo / Photosport

Probably, given the dramas incurred in the All Blacks’ previous two tests, they needed a bit of an ego-boost.

They needed to rediscover a bit of themselves and remember what it’s like to dominate an opponent – to own them from start to finish and in every facet of the game.

No one was pretending that Namibia presented any kind of serious challenge, but in the context of the World Cup, maybe they were precisely the sort of opposition the All Blacks needed to face at this juncture.

There’s been a feeling that the All Blacks just needed to press pause, reset and reconnect after two bad defeats.

That they needed to take a breath, remember that earlier this year they were playing the sort of rugby that had people excited, and get a little bit of their confidence and rhythm back courtesy of a runabout against a mostly amateur outfit.

And whatever the All Blacks may have said publicly these last few weeks, and however much they have talked about their excitement having assessed their potential against France, they have been a little dented by their inability to get things right first in London then in Paris.

The loss to France, while it unquestionably contained elements of promise, stung the All Blacks a little more deeply than they have let on.

They thought they had a high-functioning scrum, a more robust mental ability to cope with pressure and the rugby smarts to work to adapt when they encountered strategies that may have at first perplexed them.

So to find out they were further behind on their growth curve than they anticipated was a little bit of a shock and hence, smashing Namibia into little pieces wasn’t such a bad way to get their mojo back.

And it was a relatively slick demolition job. The danger of these lop-sided fixtures is that the higher-ranked team gets dragged down to playing at their opponents’ level and the game doesn’t build any momentum or flow as a result.

But the All Blacks mostly avoided falling into that trap and there weren’t any prolonged ugly bits when they mucked around or when individuals got greedy, hoping to write their name in lights.

By definition, then, it was a relatively disciplined performance, with the giant exception of de Groot, and the 10 minutes he was off the field where once again, the All Blacks got a little untidy and careless when they were reduced to 14 men.

Rieko Ioane scores the All Blacks' eleventh try. Photo / Getty Images

Certainly, though, the All Blacks’ primary objective of recalibrating their scrum was achieved. That was the big focus for them – getting their scrum tighter and their timing sharper.

They felt they were just a fraction off against France. That there little details not quite right and in games of the

Poor old Namibia felt the full wrath of the pack who were really only in Toulouse to get that one bit of their game back on track.

There was so much destructive power in the All Blacks scrum, one where they shoved Namibia five metres backwards and off the ball entirely, that the officials must have been wondering whether they were going to be dealing with a player safety issue.

It was a highly impressive display of power from the All Blacks – a sort of communist regime military parade designed to remind the world of their destructive potential – but of course, we have no idea what sort of resistance Namibia were able to mount.

And nor is there any point worrying about that or over-analysing what played out in Toulouse.

The All Blacks produced a relatively cohesive and composed performance, they won the game with a bonus point, restored a little bit of confidence and reminded everyone they know how to put a minnow in their place.

Now they just have to wait to see what fate brings de Groot.

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.