By CHRIS RATTUE
You could hardly blame John Mitchell and Robbie Deans for grabbing the one thing that has brought New Zealand genuine international rugby success in the past couple of seasons. It's called the Crusaders.
In times of trouble the mother theory comforts me, Mitchell may be singing. Canterbury, after all, is the scene of the birth of our new rugby nation.
Whether it works is another matter. Tonight is the first real chance to judge the Mitchell-Deans era at, most appropriately, Jade Stadium.
The home game of all home games. Most of this All Blacks side could lunch at home, then stroll to the ground.
They won't, of course. You can't when you are in Camp All Blacks, apparently being de-programmed by Mitchell out of the Crusaders ways. These potential super-heroes have spent six weeks whizzing around in phone boxes so they emerge as black-caped crusaders.
But it is hard to see the red being entirely washed from their jerseys.
There are people high in provincial rugby who will swear black and red that Deans, and not Mitchell, is running the All Blacks show.
This is hard to substantiate, and obviously Mitchell chose Deans as his "coaching co-ordinator" because they view the game in a similar way.
But tonight's team to face Australia is so different from what Mitchell was expected to create. In virtually every forwards position under debate, we have been surprised.
Mitchell believes in specialists. Yet he has gone so far away from that plot that the injured Taine Randell - a sort of openside - has been replaced by Crusaders No 8 Sam Broomhall in the reserves.
Mitchell was portrayed as the hard man who would restore pack law and order to world rugby - the All Blacks would have forwards to fear. Instead, they have taken all the lightweight options in the name of workrate and the game plan.
Mould-breakers have not had the best of chances either. Kees Meeuws, the most confrontational tighthead, faced Italy in game one of Series One surrounded by novice test men Tom Willis, Joe McDonnell and lock Simon Maling, who significantly packed on the unfamiliar tighthead side. A poisoned chalice for Meeuws?
The Italians, in private, rubbished the All Blacks scrum in Hamilton. Word quickly leaked that Meeuws was burdened with the blame. But was that justified? It gives some credence to the Deans-Crusaders conspiracy theory.
Even in the backs, Mitchell and Deans - and presumably alleged selectors Mark Shaw and Kieran Crowley - have chosen the model rugby citizens rather than the tearaways. We must wait to see if it bears fruit.
The selection cards have fallen where, you suspect, they were intended to fall in the first place. Caleb Ralph, Scott Robertson, Mark Robinson and even captain Reuben Thorne, who are among the marginal selections, retain their places for the first major test of Mitchell's reign. And without explanations that we can hear or understand.
Rugby has become so technical that coaches' clipboards have given way to laptops that wouldn't be disgraced at Nasa.
New rugby-speak, allied to the intricate match-plan details, have led to a trial separation, which might lead to divorce, between the hierarchy and public.
For example, an acquaintance who is an acquaintance of a famous player-turned-coach was bemused recently when the rugby icon rattled on about sheep dogs and stations. The coach wasn't planning a holiday in the Mackenzie Country. He was talking team tactics.
Mitchell and Deans are not conversationalists, or prone to waving game plans around in public. There is general confusion about selections because, in the tradition of flamboyant and confrontational All Blacks rugby, they do not make sense.
But the language of the great and the good should remain the same in the results column.
And immediate history suggests that it doesn't matter how the All Blacks win. If the dour, efficient, workrate (Crusaders?) pattern succeeds, Mitchell will be forgiven for the lack of dynamism that haunts this line-up.
Tonight's test is not a learning curve nor "an experience that will make the boys a lot better next time." Leave that nonsense for the Super 12.
It is a test, and the Bledisloe Cup is at stake. The system that matters most right now is the simple scoreboard one. Flair or no flair, that is how Mitchell and Deans will ultimately be judged.
All Blacks test schedule/scoreboard
Selectors retreat behind walls of Crusaders castle
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.