Ardie Savea reveals why he's playing so well and the special place the team is in. Video / All Blacks TV
OPINION:
The All Blacks, having arrived at Heathrow Airport last week via Washington, would have bussed past Twickenham on their way down the M4 to Cardiff.
If they had craned their necks hard enough, they would have just about been able to see the home of England Rugby as itwhizzed by – the majesty and aura of the stadium detectable even from their distant vantage point.
But sadly, that's as close as the All Blacks will get to Twickenham on their current European tour as the archaic scheduling of November tests has once again not thrown up the fixture everyone wants to see – which is England versus New Zealand.
England slumped to fifth in this year's Six Nations but no one believes that's a fair illustration of their true standing in the world game. They had a bad campaign but they remain, under the impossible to predict guidance of coach Eddie Jones, precisely the challenge the All Blacks need in their quest to build the resilience that it takes to win a World Cup.
England sit alongside South Africa in terms of a difficulty rating: they are equally physical and similarly able to use their defence and set-piece as weapons.
It's not as if New Zealand needs to be told that, because it was in plain view throughout the 2019 World Cup semifinal. England were at their absolute best that night in Yokohama – all power and pace, dynamic with a conservative hue that meant the All Blacks couldn't find a way into the game.
England fullback Elliott Daly grabs hold of Sevu Reece during the All Blacks' semifinal loss at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Photo / Photosport
The only similar challenges the All Blacks have faced since that loss to England two years ago were the back-to-back Rugby Championship encounters this year against the Springboks.
They won the first and lost the second, but more importantly, they never felt they delivered what they wanted in either game and they are eager to see how much they really did learn from those two tests and playing England would be the perfect way to find out.
Instead, the All Blacks are in Rome, playing Italy for what would have been the third time this year had it not been for the state of play around MIQ which persuaded the perennial Six Nations wooden-spooners not to travel south for two tests this July.
With the greatest respect to Italy, they are a hard watch: an opponent with an excitement factor of zero and they could play the All Blacks every year from now until however long planet Earth survives, and never come remotely close to a famous win.
This is not to say the All Blacks should never play Italy, it's to suggest the allocation system needs to be revamped to prevent this feast-or-famine scenario where there is no logical pattern to who plays who.
The match this weekend will, despite the Italians opting not to come to New Zealand this winter, still be the third time these two have played each other since 2016, a period in which the All Blacks have met England, excluding the World Cup, just once.
The All Blacks test last weekend in Cardiff was the fifth time – excluding the World Cup – they have played Wales since 2016, while next weekend they will play Ireland for the fourth time – excluding World Cup – and the weekend after, they will play their sixth test against France in the last five years.
The All Blacks haka. Photo / Photosport
How games are determined in the July and November windows is nonsensical, haphazard and utterly devoid of strategic rationale.
While the All Blacks have only played England once since 2014, Australia have met them six times and will do so for a seventh later this month.
They will then play them three times in Australia next year which means that in an eight-year period the Wallabies will have been scheduled to play England at 10 times the rate the All Blacks have been.
And while the rugby world enjoys seeing Australia play England as much as every sport relishes a clash between these two, there are few more compelling sights than seeing the All Blacks face their former colonial master at Twickenham.
We have had too much of Italy these past five years and not enough of England. The recipe has been a little Irish-heavy with another three tests against them scheduled for July next year and contained too little of Scotland, who have only played once against the All Blacks since 2016.
None of it makes sense and no one can argue that the current set-up works well or is giving fans what they want to see. Or enough of what they want to see and too much of what they don't, and a sport that fails to value its fans is a sport that will ultimately stop having fans.
