KEY POINTS:
Lote Tuqiri reckons the All Blacks have lost their aura. He thinks the Springboks are now the benchmark team for world rugby. But, maybe just to cover himself, he adds somewhat disparagingly: "The All Blacks are always up there, I suppose."
These garbled thoughts merit some analysis. And,
in appropriately muddled format, let's take the second, first.
The Springboks are now the benchmark team for world rugby? Not in my book, not after their collapse in Perth last weekend. Great teams always back up fine performances and the South Africans had a golden opportunity in Perth. They failed, they came up short. They couldn't get up seven days after the Dunedin dream.
For me, the jury is still out on these South Africans. They won a World Cup without beating anyone much and by playing boring, conservative rugby. They scrambled home in Dunedin, partly through an individual act of brilliance but also because Dan Carter missed two late drop goals. It could easily have gone the other way.
Perth was the ultimate test for the South Africans and they bottled it. So we still await the team that is going to pick up the leader's baton of world rugby and say to the rest, "Follow us, if you can."
Now let's examine the theory that the All Blacks have lost their aura. Defeat in Dunedin may have bolstered that view but look at the side New Zealand had out. Go back six _ or even 12 _ months and ask yourself what you'd have thought of an All Blacks team with the following names: Wulf, Kaino, Ellis, Boric, O'Neill, Hore, Afoa, Thomson and Nonu.
In other words, the All Blacks are enduring a revolution, not evolution. By necessity, a new team is being built. So I wonder about Tuqiri's view that the All Blacks have lost their aura. It's brave to tweak the lion's tail when he's having major surgery.
This process will take some considerable time, as anyone witheyes open and head clear will realise.
But what of Tuqiri's grudging comment that "the All Blacks are always up there, I suppose". Well, yes mate, you suppose dead right.
Okay, there has been a succession of World Cup disasters. But which country has been far and away the dominant force in world rugby these last 13 years under professionalism? Which nation has best combined power, pace and penetration? Which team has produced a game to make the gods smile, at least most of the time? Which country has brought through players who have been the envy of the wealthy Northern Hemisphere clubs? Which nation has seen most of its greatest talent lured away because its players are regarded as the best in terms of skill and attitude?
Yes, Lote ... New Zealand is the answer in every case. So, mate, before you write off the All Blacks completely, together with their vanished aura, try to engage the brain cells as to which country YOU would most like to have played for these last five years since your debut in 2003.
World Cup or no World Cup, they remain the most admired, respected rugby nation on earth. Yes, ahead of South Africa and everyone else. So win or lose tonight in Sydney, one nation will remain the benchmark for world standards.
Oh and one other thing, Lote. Don't count on the All Blacks staying down too long. And beware lions with sore heads when they wake up ...
Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London