Jonah Lomu fends off Wallabies tacklers. Photo / Getty
COMMENT:
Picking the best test performance by the All Blacks in New Zealand in the last 50 years wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be.
But naming silver and bronze medal displays to make up the Big Three of home internationals took a lot more thought.
On the dirty, cold, windy Wellington Saturday of July 6, 1996, I was one of 40,000 people lucky enough to be at Athletic Park to see the All Blacks demolish the Wallabies 43-6. "It was a day," Jonah Lomu would say nine years later, "when all 15 players clicked together, and having 15 players with the amount of firepower the All Blacks can harness, it's just beautiful to watch."
Athletic Park was so wet and slippery the slightly surreal appearance of the Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders before the test began was marked by several of the women from Texas leaving the field with the backsides of their white uniforms covered in mud from falls. Yet the All Blacks were so brilliant they played as if it was a sunny, still afternoon and the ball was bone dry.
It was 20 minutes before an All Black pass was dropped, and they knocked on only five times in the 80 minutes.
HOW SOON WAS IT CLEAR SOMETHING MAGIC WAS HAPPENING IN WELLINGTON?
Two minutes into the test the All Blacks had a throw to a lineout 10 metres from the Australian line. Ross Cooper, an assistant to head coach John Hart, says "it (1996) was the first year when lifting in the lineout was legal. We talked about a move where, if we got close to the line at some stage, we should call the move.
"It was called Riccardo, after Ric Salizzo (the former media liaison man with the All Blacks, later host of television's Sport Cafe). It just so happened that it was the first lineout of the game, and we scored from it. We'd talked about it in the Saturday morning meeting with the forwards, over the road from the hotel, and we practised it, and Ice (Michael Jones) scored off the move. It was really neat that we planned it, and it came off."
ALL SIX TRIES THE ALL BLACKS SCORED WERE GOOD, BUT JUSTIN MARSHALL'S WAS ONE FOR THE AGES
In the 17th minute of the game, first-five Andrew Mehrtens grubber kicked for Lomu. The giant wing slid towards the ball, as did his marker Ben Tune. "I went down legs first, facing Tune," Lomu would later tell me. "He didn't really have any option except to stay on his feet. If he'd come down he would have kissed my size 14 pair of shoes."
Lomu was able to get the ball to halfback Justin Marshall. An Australian forward grabbed Marshall's jersey to try to hold him back but the attempt to slow him actually helped. "Without it, I think I would have arrived at the ball at about the same time as Jonah," says Marshall. "But a bit of cheating by an annoying forward helped me time my run absolutely perfectly. The effort of Jonah, for such a big guy, to get there and get down and claim the ball was amazing. He made the try, really."
There was an open field ahead but there were 40 metres to run. Marshall remembers "the pitter patter" of feet behind him and the jubilation he felt when he knew he was at the line.
He celebrated with a massive dive for the try. Years later he couldn't help laughing at the memory. "I was just thrilled to get to the line. It was a bit over the top. I guess Harty (John Hart) must have had a few thumps in his chest in the stand. It would have been pretty easy to land on the ground and spill the ball in conditions like that, wouldn't it? It was probably a bit silly to dive that high."
IT WAS THE LAST TIME THE WALLABIES DISRESPECTED THE HAKA
Encouraged by their greatest player, David Campese, to ignore the haka, the Wallabies loitered inside their own 22, shuffling, jogging, and trying to look bored. John Eales once told me, "It's the only thing I'm embarrassed about in my rugby career, is not facing the haka that day. It showed a complete disrespect, and it was a poor decision in our team to be a part of that."
AND IT STARTED A MAGIC, HISTORICAL YEAR
This was the first year of professional rugby and the All Blacks would not only win the first Tri-Nations but go to South Africa and, for the first time, win a series against the Springboks there.
When they returned from South Africa 250,000 turned out for a ticker-tape parade in Queen St, coach Hart was named New Zealander of the Year by the National Business Review, and he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen's New Year honours list.
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Conrad Smith called the 20-8 victory at Eden Park one of the best games he was involved in during a 94-test career as an All Black. Many of us would call it the best.
All the pressure was on New Zealand. Australian journalists heaped on the vitriol, harking back to the sensational quarter-final loss to France in 2007 in Cardiff. Every choker gag in the world got a run, from "What's the difference between a tea bag and the All Blacks? A tea bag stays in the Cup longer" to "What do you call 15 guys sitting around the television watching the Rugby World Cup final? The All Blacks."
But on the Sunday night of October 16, 2011, the All Blacks commanded the field, right through to the last moment of the game when wing Richard Kahui flung Quade Cooper, his childhood mate from Tokoroa, into touch.
THE ALL BLACKS HAD INSPIRATION FROM A GREAT SOURCE
On the Thursday before the 2011 semifinal the All Blacks gathered in their team room on the second floor of the Heritage Hotel in Hobson St, Auckland. Murmurs became more urgent as they realised the man at the front of the room shifting nervously from foot to foot was a true Kiwi hero - Victoria Cross recipient Lance Corporal Willie Apaiata.
They have a saying in the SAS, he tells the players, "Last man out". Basically it means every man can rely on the soldiers around him to make sure he's never deserted when the situation turns deadly. The following week a still slightly awed All Black, Andy Ellis, told me the idea espoused by Apiata, of never letting your mate down, was not lost on the team.
EVEN THE BEST WALLABY WAS CLOSED DOWN
David Pocock, a forager in the Richie McCaw mould, had been the key to Australia's success in the Cup before the semi. Jerome Kaino, the towering All Blacks blindside flanker was given the task of shutting him down, running the ball at Pocock, and monstering him on defence.
Kaino did the job so well it was hard to disagree with a blogger in Spasifik magazine, who wrote, "Jerome Kaino and Superman once fought each other on a bet. The loser had to wear his underwear outside his pants."
There was a classy grace note as a scrum formed five minutes from the end Wallabies halfback Will Genia patted McCaw on the shoulder and quietly said, "Well done."
If there was one side that threatened the magnificent All Black World Cup winners of '87 it was Scotland. They had class in the backline, from Gavin Hastings at fullback to Ray Laidlaw at halfback, and they had a forward pack that threatened to be the most powerful at the Cup.
TAMING THE BEAR
Scotland's scrum was a thing of ferocious beauty, anchored by Iain Milne, a tighthead prop they called The Bear, who at 118kg was 13kg heavier than anyone in the All Black pack. He was so strong the Scottish selectors sometimes picked mobile but light loose forwards at lock, knowing Milne would hold the scrum steady anyway.
The All Blacks met fire with fire. On the Thursday before the June 6 Saturday afternoon quarter-final at Lancaster Park, coach Brian Lochore slipped the leash on selector Alex Wyllie, and Wyllie ran a scrum session at Rugby Park in Christchurch that was beyond brutal.
Ghostwriting a book two weeks after the Cup with John Kirwan, he was still laughing at the memory. "It was the only time it was safe for us backs to give cheek to the forwards. They could barely walk up the aisle of the bus."
The agony turned to ecstasy in the quarter-final. The 30-3 drubbing was based on the command gained by the All Black forwards. Scotland's captain, hooker Colin Deans, singled out the All Black pack for praise after the game. "We thought they might have a bit of a weakness there. But it was one of the best scrums we've ever come up against."
IT WAS THE SIGNAL THAT THE '87 SIDE BASICALLY HAD NO SOFT SPOTS
The quarter-final triumph showed the brilliance of the All Black backline, with a back three of Kirwan, Craig Green, and John Gallagher, who would run in 17 of the 40 tries the All Blacks scored in the tournament, was matched by the resilience of the pack.
The triumph at Lancaster Park was soon followed by commanding wins in the semifinal with Wales, 49-6, and the final with France, 29-9.
AND KIWIS LOVED THEM FOR IT
Three thousand people turned up to watch when the All Blacks trained in Napier after the Scotland win. "It really made me realise the impact the Cup has made on New Zealand," Kirwan wrote in his diary at the time. "We now realise that we can win the World Cup."
The missing rugby jersey was found after a two-year search.