Peter Bills: It will take more than Carter to stop this rot

Dan Carter will not be the All Blacks' saviour. Photo / Getty Images

If New Zealanders believe a single lifeboat named The Daniel W. Carter can rescue their floundering All Blacks ship, then they need to think again.

Not even Carter with a magic wand could transform this shambles of a side into a coherent force. Some major surgery and a significant rethink will clearly be required to do that.

The question is, are there other players in New Zealand able to make the step-up to test match rugby? Is what we are seeing pretty much what there is and no more? If so, 2009 looks like turning into Graham Henry's "annus horribilis".

All the authority, power, composure and control that under-pinned four successive Tri-Nations titles for New Zealand in the last four years has suddenly disappeared. Watching the All Blacks in South Africa during the past fortnight reminded me of how New Zealand sides have played in Rugby World Cups these past 20 years. Nervy, panicky when put under pressure, abandoning the gameplan and making far too many simple mistakes.

For purveyors of the latter, Durban on Sunday morning represented an absolute feast. Isaac Ross went into a ruck from the wrong end and was yellow carded, Jerome Kaino twice slipped his binding prematurely at scrums and was duly penalised, Richie McCaw twice handled in the ruck and conceded penalties No 2 and 6 to Morne Steyn and Kaino lost the ball with alarming ease in contact.

Hardly any All Black could deal with the aerial bombs which encouraged the Springboks all the more to hoist high kicks. Sitiveni Sivivatu had apparently been told that marking the ball from kicks which landed inside his own 22 was now illegal and therefore he had to run from every perilous position. Joe Rokocoko did likewise instead of clearing downfield in the 37th minute and Morne Steyn scored South Africa's only try from the resulting five-metre scrum. Sivivatu's defence was of the Extra B XVs standard, two grotesque fly hacks both of which he missed being catastrophic examples.

In all, I counted 47 mistakes by the All Blacks, 28 in the first half, and there may have been more. You can't win any game with such indiscipline.

The All Blacks' back three offered a bizarre mix of audacious counter-attacking and crazy errors all at the same time. By the end, the All Blacks handling errors tally had passed 30, a grim indictment of their panic and lack of precision. But quintessentially, there wasn't the platform up front from which anything much other than desperation could result.

The lineouts were again a mess, Andrew Hore's throws were often not straight or went clean over the top. Halfback Jimmy Cowan's recall lasted only 44 minutes and Piri Weepu, the culprit in Bloemfontein last week when his shocking pass near the South African line handed the Springboks a breakaway try, wasn't much better.

This time, Weepu distinguished himself with one terrible clearance and another wild pass.

Cowan's aimless kick shortly before halftime cost his side 50m and the position from which Steyn scored the South African try.

The trouble is, it seems to me, so much of the "dog" that made New Zealand so successful (World Cups excepted) in recent years, has gone and not been properly replaced. No Jerry Collins and Anton Oliver to dig in and hurt the opposition. No Chris Jack, Byron Kelleher, Chris Masoe and no Greg Somerville. .

So while it was true that most of the aggression and desire came from South Africa, all they had to do was wait for the next New Zealand transgression and whistle up Morne Steyn.

Where do the All Blacks go from here? Back to basics, hopefully. You can't play the modern game without a smoothly functioning lineout, so that is a first requirement.

Richie McCaw was again bettered by Springbok fetcher Heinrich Brussouw. But then, McCaw doesn't look the player he was and those around him are operating significantly below their best. Expecting the captain to keep snatching victory from the jaws of defeat especially after a lengthy injury lay-off, is not realistic.

On yesterday's evidence, the All Blacks need to consider a new left wing, a new halfback combination, a new hooker, and a new blindside flanker. That's a third of the side and restricting suggested changes to just that number might be construed as charitable.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London.