Rugby World Cup report card: Rating the All Blacks’ chances in Paris

With 10 weeks to go until the All Blacks play France in the opening game of the 2023 World Cup, Phil Gifford rates the All Blacks’ chances in Paris in the wake of the naming of the squad for the Rugby Championship.

Squad depth

Grade: B+

Much better than it felt during the dog days of July and August last year when Ireland, South Africa, and, as hard as it still is to believe, Argentina, were beating the All Blacks.

At that stage Jordie Barrett was still considered to only be a fullback, not a second-five. Ethan de Groot and Tyrel Lomax weren’t propping, and Richie Mo’unga wasn’t at first-five.

Now there’s talent to burn in the backline, although, as a retired All Blacks great said to me during the week, “Please let them play Will Jordan at fullback, not on the wing. We played Christian Cullen and Mils Muliaina out of position in 1999 and 2003. Jordan’s a world-class fullback, and we’ve got a swag of wingers.”

Elsewhere there are just two areas that keep the mark below A.

There’s a huge gulf between the international experience and nous of Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock and Scott Barrett, and their back-ups, Josh Lord and Tupou Vaa’i. Lord and Vaa’I have potential, but one injury to the grizzled veterans, who boast a lazy 301 tests between them, and the back-up lock on the bench could be conceding years of street smarts to the likes of South African Eben Etzebeth or Ireland’s James Ryan.

Ever since Jerome Kaino, who must have been in contention for player of the tournament at World Cups in both 2011 and 2015, left, the All Blacks haven’t found a terminator at blindside flanker. And no, while Scott Barrett is a terrific lock, he is not, as the All Blacks discovered to their cost in 2019 in Japan against England, a test-level flanker.

Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock. Photo / Photosport

Excitement factor

Grade: B

While the All Blacks will always hold to the mantra that pressure is what helps drive them, I’ve never met a rugby player who didn’t relish the idea of going into a game as the underdog.

New Zealand rugby is at its best when it’s ahead of the game.

There’s a chance for this All Blacks team to shock the world in the way the Black Ferns did last year at the World Cup.

There are downsides to Super Rugby as a preparation for dour forward battles against the like of Ireland, France, and England.

As Sir Graham Henry has often pointed out, Northern Hemisphere sides tend to develop a power, forward-based game because they frequently play their club games in cold, sleeting rain, on heavy pitches.

With our main Super Rugby competition starting in summer, there’s a natural tendency, in non-cyclone years, to have less grind, and more gloss.

But, as the All Blacks demonstrated brilliantly in 2015, if your forwards can get quick enough ball, having fliers scoring tries can be a way to win the Cup.

Figures don’t lie. New Zealand is the only country to have won Cups with tries, not penalties and drop goals. No other team has won a final scoring three tries. The All Blacks have done it twice.

The real strength of this year’s squad lies out wide, where players like Leicester Fainga’anuku, Mark Telea, Rieko Ioane, and Jordan have the potential to be hugely dangerous.

Ian Foster and his coaching staff have the chance, which I’d be surprised if they didn’t take, to unleash attacking flair that could startle the world.

The weird, awkward circumstances this year around coaching performances and tenure should free Foster to be daring and to formulate, with Joe Schmidt in particular, schemes to use speed and enterprise, in the way the team of ‘15 did so well.

Given the vitriol Foster has had to deal with, he may be a coach who, with nothing to lose but the glory of a World Cup triumph to gain, decides to damn every torpedo and go for it.

I hope he does.

All Blacks coach Ian Foster. Photo / Getty

Fan support

Grade: C

We’re a ruthless rugby public in New Zealand.

This is far from the first time we’ve judged the All Blacks, and the men who run them, brutally.

When Graham Henry was reappointed ahead of Robbie Deans in 2007, the Herald’s headline was: Wrong Man, Wrong Reasons - This Decision Is All Wrong.

The angst was so great that the following May in a first, and so far a one-off for the game, NZRU officials and the All Blacks coaches held an off the record media forum at Eden Park to try to clear the air.

After three hours of heated discussion assistant coach Wayne Smith made a passionate plea, asking “When will we win your trust again?” None of us in the room had the heart to say, “When you win the World Cup.”

Having lived in Christchurch for the last four years, there are no signs I’ve seen of a groundswell of support behind the current team. In the north, in entirely unscientific surveys of rugby friends, it feels the same.

But the 2023 All Blacks shouldn’t be downhearted by that.

New Zealanders relationship with rugby could keep a team of psychologists occupied for years. For some, worrying about the All Blacks can be their natural default position.

Many people, embroiled in the game from childhood, also suspect they could pick and coach an All Blacks team better than the people doing the job.

What will change things? It’s simple, but not easy. Beat France in the opening game in Paris, and support will skyrocket from lukewarm to red hot.

World Cup build-up

Grade: B

If five tests between July 9 and the World Cup feels a little thin, it’s the same number as the All Blacks played before the last three Cups.

The first four tests this year are pretty standard. The Pumas away in Mendoza, South Africa at Mt Smart, then the Wallabies in Melbourne and Dunedin.

The wild card comes in the shape of a match at Twickenham on August 26, against South Africa, a fortnight before the Cup opens.

Games so close to the Cup can amount to a phony war.

The very good teams don’t reveal all their ploys, and may not even play their top line-up.

The best World Cup All Blacks team I’ve seen in the professional era was the 2015 side. They lost one of their warm-up tests to Australia. In an Ellis Park test against South Africa, which they narrowly won, they fielded six players who three months later didn’t start the final at Twickenham against the Wallabies.

Who knows how the Springboks will approach the August test in London? Their first major challenge at the Cup comes two weeks into the tournament, against Ireland. They may not play all the guns at Twickenham.

What will probably matter most is how the All Blacks squad is gelling at training, and off the field. Unity matters more at World Cups than dress rehearsals.