Sean Fitzpatrick: Big ideas are needed to spark AB support

The All Blacks and New Zealand rugby fans face a huge challenge with the 2011 Rugby World Cup - on and off the field. It is only 105 weeks away. Time is closing fast.

The team has to do the job on the field, as it is not only a matter of hosting the Cup but winning it, too. Let's be in no doubt about the importance of winning this tournament. The Rugby World Cup is the third most-watched sporting event in the world behind the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup.

This is a golden opportunity to promote our country. It is worth something like $850 million to $1.25 billion, a huge injection into our economy.

Our style and palates have moved on somewhat since we won the Cup in 1987. Coffee came in only two varieties then, black and white. We were barely out of the rugby, racing and beer era. Today, tourism is our number one industry. Our chefs, winemakers and food producers are among the best in the world.

Rugby is going through a difficult time in this country and the current regime is struggling to produce results and to get people behind the team.

Back in 1987, coach Brian Lochore did a terrific thing with the All Blacks. Most people forget this when they think of '87 and the World Cup win - but matters were similarly clouded as far as the All Blacks were concerned by the rebel Cavaliers tour of South Africa and the fallout from that.

In the build-up to the '87 Cup, BJ put us all on a bus one day and we headed down a gravel road in the Wairarapa to who-knows-where. Pirinoa, it was called, and a little pub there. Inside were 20 families, waiting for us.

Boys, BJ said, we're being billeted. Richard Loe and I headed off with a family with whom we stayed for the next few days, our feet sticking out of the single beds we slept in.

It was a masterstroke. It took the All Blacks back to the nation. The fans came to us and enjoyed the experience and we realised who it was we were playing for. The feeling spread.

BJ did other similar things. I remember a training run at Te Aute College, in Hawke's Bay, where the All Blacks were met off the bus by the whole school. The whole school did a haka. The ground shook and so did some of the All Blacks, with emotion. It was a powerful, compelling thing. Again, we knew who we were playing for - and they were so happy to show us and to join with us.

As fans, there is little we can do on the field but there's a lot we can do off it. It comes down to support. I'm not feeling a lot of excitement about the World Cup yet - and it needs to happen fast. We need some big ideas, some lateral thinking, to help spark that excitement.

There is talk of "a stadium of four million" for the World Cup. Well, I'd go further - it's a stadium of more than five million, as there are more than a million New Zealanders living overseas. We need to hook into that overseas community, raise their excitement levels and promote our country to the world - especially with tourism being our leading industry now.

At least 65,000 people are coming to New Zealand for the Cup in 2011. It's an opportunity to show them what we are made of and what makes our country tick. Some might stay or, at the very least, we should stimulate return visits - again good for the economy - by those visitors.

If the All Blacks can "get back to the nation", the nation will respond by getting back to the All Blacks. I am not talking about blind support or never criticising the All Blacks. It's a matter of generating enthusiasm.

The All Blacks can't do all of that - we have to lift that enthusiasm among ourselves. We did it, to a degree, in the Lions tour of 2005 and we need to lift our game again as hosts.

It's like what happened here during the golden period of the America's Cup. Talk to any of the sailors involved in that and the red socks and all the issues and enthusiasm that lit up a nation - they will tell you they felt the whole country willing them on and that they found it really special.

If we can generate that and emulate that, the country will swing in behind the All Blacks and we lift our chances of winning on the field. And off it.

Wouldn't that be fantastic?