KEY POINTS:
Two chokes inside a month in the Six Nations. It's incredible. First there was the Choke at Croke as England succumbed and then the APB for the Scottish strangler after Irish five-eighths Ronan O'Gara was slapped in a sleeper hold in the bowels of a maul.
Murrayfield was
a murky place when the O'Gara accusations were aired. But it does carry a melancholy reputation like the time a carpark warden failed to recognise broadcaster Bill McLaren and refused to allow him in, even though he had parked in the same place for 40 years. "I'm a freeman of the Scottish Rugby Union," McLaren protested. "I don't care if you are Lennox Lewis," said the official, "ye cannae park here."
But the O'Gara incident was no lone choke at Murrayfield. Few of the crowd who were at the same ground in 1991 have forgotten or forgiven local hero Gavin Hastings when he sliced a penalty in front of the posts during the World Cup semifinal against England.
Identifying chokes in rugby is slim pickings, though, compared with, say, golf, where you could whistle up Greg Norman squandering a huge lead at the 1986 Masters or Jean van der Velde triple-bogeying his way into the psychological ruin of a playoff at the 1999 British Open.
It was only last year, though, that frustrated Hurricanes prop Neemia Tialata was caught on camera trying to throttle All Black captain Richie McCaw as he killed the ball at the bottom of another Super 14 ruck. A throttle for a killing, sounds fair. All lame jokes aside, the fallout after that incident seemed to focus more on whether McCaw got preferential treatment at the breakdown from referees rather than the legality of Tialata's methods.
That episode and the O'Gara allegations provoked thoughts this week as the All Blacks came out of their conditioning cocoon, about their greatest choke. With the overwhelming fascination about the World Cup, how were the various campaigns rated since the All Blacks won the inaugural tournament 20 years ago?
Three semifinal defeats in 1991, 1999 and 2003 and the extra-time loss to the Springboks at Ellis Park in 1995.
While a fading team in 1991 and a rising one in 2003 lost to mentally hardened Wallaby sides, and a sickened side creaked in Johannesburg, the 1999 World Cup semifinal loss to the French qualified as a choke.
Leading 24-10 in the second half, the All Blacks shipped 33 points in a remarkable 20 minutes as they suffocated on the French fury.
Like the Scottish authorities investigating last week in Murrayfield, the All Blacks had no answer that day at Twickenham to the brutal French onslaught. Let's hope they equipped themselves for any similar assaults at this World Cup when they were on their reconditioning programmes.
