All Blacks first five Richie Mo'unga in the New Zealand and Australia rugby test match at Eden Park. Richie Mo'unga streaks away for an intercept try. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
All Blacks first five Richie Mo'unga in the New Zealand and Australia rugby test match at Eden Park. Richie Mo'unga streaks away for an intercept try. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
Six talking points from the first Bledisloe Cup test and a plea for foresight in the Christchurch stadium debate.
Always look on the bright side
With the occasional exception, such as France's Marc Lievremont, who suggested before the 2011 World Cup that his players were "good guys cursed with cowardice",coaches are unrelentingly positive, win or lose.
The first Bledisloe Cup test was, for 45 of the 80 minutes, a wind swept dog, with a flood of breakdown penalties, handling errors, and, in the case of Wallaby Noah Lolesio, a goal kicking nightmare.
The All Blacks had 23 golden minutes after halftime, the Wallabies were dynamic in the last 12. At 33-18 after 63 minutes most on song All Black teams would have knocked up 50 points, not faded to a 33-25. What can we read into it all?
Both Ian Foster and Dave Rennie, as you'd expect, found signs of promise. Foster was at pains to point out that "we've put a stake in the ground" with the Bledisloe series now at 1-0. Rennie applauded his team's "impact off the bench" and character.
Behind doors this week Foster and his coaching team will be picking apart the weird 17 point meltdown in the last 12 minutes, while Rennie will be agonising over whether Lolesio a) as Richie Mo'unga suggested after the game, just struggled with an unusually strong wind, or b) has somehow lost all confidence, or c) just had a one night bout of the yips.
A win at Eden Park in a week's time should lock in the future for Ian Foster. History shows that rugby administrators aren't keen on flipping All Black coaches halfway through the four year World Cup cycle. The last time they did it was 19 years ago, when Wayne Smith was replaced by John Mitchell, and that wasn't really based on results. Facing a NZRU group that included former All Black captains like Brian Lochore, John Graham, and Tane Norton for a debrief just a couple of weeks after the Wallabies had snatched a last minute 29-26 win in Sydney, Smith opted for a move that spoke volumes for his integrity. He told them the truth. He said he wasn't sure that he wanted to continue as coach. "I thought they'd want me to be honest."
By the time he sat down with the official selection panel, and said all hesitancy had gone, he wanted to continue, it was too late. Foster, if a victory this Saturday locks up the Bledisloe Cup, won't need to do the same soul searching that led to Smith's departure.
The All Blacks perform the haka before the New Zealand and Australia rugby test match at Eden Park. 7 August 2021. New Zealand Herald photograph by Jason Oxenham.
Simply the best
According to the man himself, it took Aaron Smith almost 30 minutes of his 100th test to settle into his usual groove of super sharp passes. He obviously knows his form better than anyone else, but from the stand he looked much as he always does, the best halfback the All Blacks have had in the last 50 years. In passing there's something reassuring for mere mortals in the fact two of the key All Blacks, Smith and Mo'unga, wouldn't tower over everyone else in an office staff photo. They could, of course, give a 40 metre start and still win the Christmas picnic sprint.
We were gutted too Richie
In the immortal phrase of Charlie Hodge, one of Elvis Presley's paid pals, what appeared to be a try for the ages by Sevu Reece just after halftime was "like finding a cheeseburger in a medicine chest."
Ninety metres, eight players handling, the ball magically appearing, then flicking on, with great angles being run so confidently it felt as the spirit of sevens rugby had taken over the test, it was stand up and shout footy.
Mo'unga started the move just out from his own line, he said, because the wind was so strong that if he'd kicked for touch "the lineout would have been inside the 22." And yes, he was gutted when a clear forward pass from Aaron Smith to Brodie Retallick around the halfway mark was detected, and the try ruled out. As were, you can bet, every Kiwi at the ground, or watching on tv.
Having occasionally found my teeth grinding as Michael Hooper frustrated the All Blacks at yet another breakdown, there was a small, petty part of me that hoped he'd be the sort of bumptious jerk that, for example, Owen Finegan, a Wallabies' dynamo from the late 1990s, would prove to be when we met.
Having observed Hooper at countless press conferences since he became Australian captain in 2014, and seeing him again on Saturday night after the Eden Park test, honesty requires me to record that Hooper is up there in a large group of Aussie captains who are actually champion blokes. From Andrew Slack to Nick Farr-Jones to John Eales, to Hooper, the common factors are decency, good humour, and likeability.
All Blacks first five Richie Mo'unga spills the ball under pressure from Wallabies hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosain the New Zealand and Australia rugby test match. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
The decision may be short sighted, but at least it's stupid
As a teenage journalist in 1965 I was told by a veteran city hall reporter at the Herald that "nobody in the world is more short sighted than a New Zealand local body politician."
He cited the harbour bridge, which was too small the day it opened in 1959, and the rejection of Auckland Mayor Dove-Myer Robinson's plans for a light rail system, laughed out of contention by the city council.
Now I'm a ratepayer in Christchurch I'm horrified at the same penny pinching lack of enlightened thinking by the Christchurch council. The multi-purpose stadium is not only years and years late, now it'll be too small as well. There's a chance there may be a change of heart this week, now they've found the cost over-run isn't as great as first thought. But the public smugness from those on council wanting to deny future generations not only top level rugby tests, but also rock concerts, that will continue to go to the bigger stadium in Dunedin, is scary. You can only hope they'll be enough people on the council whose imagination extends beyond the next election, who will do the right thing for future generations.
