Herald on Sunday editorial: All Blacks' Apia game a benefit both ways

The All Blacks are guaranteed a warm welcome in Samoa. Photo / Dean Purcell

When Brazil saw its football team go to pieces before their eyes this week, there must have been many rugby fans in New Zealand thinking, could it happen to us? The All Blacks have suffered equally unexpected exits in World Cup knockout rounds but not with a mental collapse as sudden and complete as Brazil's players exhibited after Germany shredded their defence. "Scary," commented Auckland Blues coach John Kirwan, "but it can happen".

The spectacle has put a different complexion on the New Zealand Rugby Union's decision to schedule a match for the All Blacks in Samoa next year. The decision is long overdue and nothing more than Samoa deserves for the contribution players of Samoan birth or heritage have made to New Zealand rugby for many decades. But it no longer seems a mere gesture on New Zealand's part, it could prove essential to the All Blacks' preparation for the Rugby World Cup.

Our rugby writer Gregor Paul reports that the coaching panel is concerned that the team has drawn an easy pool at next year's World Cup and might not be as match-hardened as the teams they meet in later rounds. The coaches want to take the All Blacks out of their comfort zone. Where better than Apia Park where the ground will be hard and rough, the crowd passionate, the home team not at all over-awed and good enough on past performances to pull off a surprise?

It is just a pity that the best NZR could offer is a midweek match a few days after next season's Super 15 final. Chances are any All Blacks involved in the final will not be playing at Apia, though they may accompany the team. The regular international series starts just 10 days later with a match against Argentina. Yet once the series ends on August 15 there is a five-week gap before teams go to England for the World Cup, starting September 20.

The All Blacks will be in need of more matches to keep themselves sharp during those five weeks. It is a pity the game with Samoa could not have been scheduled for a weekend in that gap when all fit players would be available and a hard match would seem more useful.

But at least the game to be played at this time next year is progress. It should not have taken so much media pressure to get the All Blacks to Apia. New Zealand Rugby ought to be doing much more for the game in the Pacific. Population and stadiums are all that prevent Samoa, Tonga and Fiji challenging Argentina for a place in the Southern Hemisphere's premier competition.

Samoa will give the midweek All Blacks a rugged game and at the end of the World Cup we may all thank them for it.