Coach Graham Henry and captain Richie McCaw after they were eliminated from the World Cup. Photo / Photosport
Coach Graham Henry and captain Richie McCaw after they were eliminated from the World Cup. Photo / Photosport
COMMENT:
Mick Byrne leans across the barrier and in a conspiratorial whisper, reveals that the All Blacks had been given the wrong balls to practice with before the game.
He's saying this not just to explain why Daniel Carter didn't have a great day kicking for goal against Scotland, butto heighten this growing sense that the All Blacks are up against some invisible force at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
Dan Carter was given the wrong balls to practice with. Photo / Photosport
The All Blacks had just beaten Scotland 40-0 at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, which in itself was a bit weird. Not that they had beaten Scotland, but that they were in Edinburgh when the World Cup was in France.
The Scots had voted for France to host the 2007 tournament and were rewarded with two games, one of which was against the All Blacks.
It was a farce that the Scots could play on their home ground at a World Cup they weren't hosting, made surreal by the stadium announcements being in French.
When Wales tried to do the same thing in 2015 – play Australia in Cardiff when the World Cup was in England – the Wallabies refused and World Rugby backed them.
Adding to the weirdness was that the Scots had duped World Rugby by submitting before the tournament a jersey they weren't actually going to wear at the World Cup.
All teams had to submit a first and alternative choice jersey so potential colour clashes could be identified.
The upshot was that New Zealand were wrongly kicked out of their black jerseys – didn't even take them to Edinburgh – and the two teams played in remarkably similar grey shirts in one of the worst colour clashes of modern times.
There was a kit clash in the All Blacks v Scotland game. Photo / Photosport
So Byrne, who was funnelling his way out the stadium through the media mixed zone, mentions the balls because there is uneasiness developing within the All Blacks.
Are they paranoid or right to believe opponents and officials are working hard to undermine them anyway they can?
When they had played Portugal in Lyon the week before, they were asked by a World Rugby official to not scrummage at full power.
The global body was worried about injury and so as everyone else at the tournament was taking lumps out of each other, the All Blacks were being asked to take it easy.
When the All Blacks arrived in Toulouse to play their last pool game against Romania, they knew they would be facing France in the quarter-final.
Not in Paris, though, but in Cardiff because the Welsh had also been rewarded for giving the French their vote.
Coach Graham Henry and captain Richie McCaw after they were eliminated from the World Cup. Photo / Photosport
And New Zealand Rugby chief executive Chris Moller knew there was going to be another battle about kit and sensed that it was undeniable there was an anti-All Blacks vibe at the tournament.
It seemed, at the time, that he should have bigger things to worry about, but he saw this looming battle as a means to test how much support New Zealand had within World Rugby.
He felt that test jerseys should not be 'doctored' for commercial gain – that it was wrong that England, as an example, had a purple jersey they occasionally wore.
He felt countries should be restricted to having two options that had to be in designated traditional colours. He didn't like exploiting fans and he liked even less that the French had 'darkened' their traditional jersey so that it was almost black.
This was deliberate he felt, done with the goal of forcing the All Blacks out of their traditional jersey in Cardiff. It was petty, but important because the French lived off symbolism and would see it as an early victory if New Zealand weren't wearing black.
It would, through the eyes of the French, make the All Blacks less intimidating and there it was – another attempt to destabilise the favourites.
Chris Moller sensed there was an anti-All Blacks vibe at the tournament. Photo / Photosport
Moller expected World Rugby to back him and to agree that the only way to avoid a colour clash in the quarter-final was to ask the French to play in their alternative white shirt and New Zealand in black.
World Rugby asked two local club teams in Cardiff to wear the respective French and New Zealand kit and filmed them playing to see how it looked on TV.
The decision was made that France would wear blue jerseys, but white shorts and red socks. Again all this battling over the jersey wasn't petty – it was about the All Blacks testing to see if they were right to be a little paranoid that the world was against them.
Any doubt that fate was conspiring against them disappeared when the 28-year-old Wayne Barnes, with barely two years experience, was appointed referee.
The hosts versus the favourites – the biggest clash of the four quarter-finals - and the game is awarded to the youngest and least experienced referee?
Even if the All Blacks had found a way past France and Barnes, there's no doubt something else outside their control would have tripped them up in the semifinal.
