The All Blacks stand dejected after losing the final of the Rugby World Cup. Photo / Photosport
Jonathan Liew has covered the last three Rugby World Cups. He was the 2021 British sportswriter of the year and has been columnist of the year on three separate occasions. He writes for The Guardian, after previous senior roles with the Telegraph and The Independent.
We caught up with Liew to get an alternative perspective on the All Blacks, their supposed lost aura, the TMO mess and overly sensitive Kiwi fans.
Jonathan, looking back, what did you make of the All Blacks at the World Cup?
They bounced back superbly. They got almost blown away in the opening game, in terms of the sheer intensity and the momentum that France seemed to have. On top of the South Africa defeat at Twickenham, it was an impressive arc, the way they turned that narrative around.
We see teams start tournaments slowly in all kinds of sports and they can’t pick up momentum and things start to conspire against them. So the way New Zealand could come together and go back to who they were and what they do best, that is not a given.
The final result shouldn’t obscure the fact that New Zealand played some of the best rugby. They probably had the best grip on the kind of game they wanted to play. Their identity came through.
In a general sense, have the All Blacks lost their aura?
This comes up every four years – we had the same talk after the 2019 semifinal in Japan.
There are two separate issues. That team you had a decade or so ago, with the great Richie McCaw and everybody else. I’m not going to say it is unrepeatable – because NZ have this predilection for producing talent on an industrial scale – but it was a really special team. The aura partly springs from that; it wasn’t just about the myth and the jersey – it was the fact they were really, bloody good. They still have that reputation which makes them a champion team and gets them through tough periods.
That got them through the quarter-final; they knew how to handle those pressure situations far better than Ireland did. That part of the aura is still intact. But are they going to play everyone off the park? No - but they didn’t in 2011 either. The All Blacks will always have that big game mentality but they are one of several contenders now. They have rivals.
Can the Northern Hemisphere teams bounce back in 2027?
Sport is strange like this. Everyone had pegged this as France’s time but they are still an emerging side, if you think about how good they could be in four years, with more development. However, Ireland are probably as good as they are going to be. This was their big chance.
What is your view of the controversial TMO system?
I don’t want to sound like a 75-year-old Tory but one of the things that rugby had going for it was that however many subjective decisions were made on the field – and it is an incredibly subjective sport if you think about how the scrum and breakdown are refereed, where you are relying on one guy’s judgement - there was a general acceptance of the decision.
Once you introduce technology, with the idea that this guy is fallible and there are other steps in the process, it erodes some of the statutory and moral authority of the referee. And once you let that element of doubt and scepticism in, it’s hard to stop that abuse becoming a torrent.
Everybody is viewing incidents through their own subjective lens and there is no such thing as objective authority anymore. That is a worrying development. The code of reverence for the referee is eroding and this tournament has been a big part of that development.
Is it because we can’t tolerate mistakes anymore?
Technology provides the illusion that you will get a perfect decision and it is never going to happen, especially in such a complex sport.
We have seen that with the provisional red card system. The fallacy that you will come up with a perfect decision if you have more time – that is not going to happen. But fans start to expect a perfection that doesn’t exist and that view has almost been encouraged by the sport, which makes people more outraged than before.
People are expecting more but are also being told to expect more. We are trapped in a cycle of perfection.
On the All Blacks, are Kiwis generally too sensitive towards overseas criticism of their national team?
New Zealanders are more interested in what the foreign press are saying about them than most other countries I’ve come across. Maybe it is because you are so remote and I guess people don’t talk about New Zealand that much - outside of a sporting context - there is a kind of fascination in what people think of you.
What have you made of the All Blacks over the years, between our rose-tinted view and the occasional British barbs?
The All Blacks have been a net force for good, not just for rugby but sport in general. There is something syrupy and idealistic and romantic about them and they do silly things from time to time and they are not perfect but they don’t merit a lot of the ridicule they get.
There is something pure about New Zealand rugby, even with the insurance deals and INEOS and private equity money. There’s something there that isn’t possible anymore in English sport which has been bought and divvied up, sold off and toxified.
When something comes along that feels pure and authentic, a lot of our pundits don’t know how to deal with it. They assume it must be phoney or fraudulent. We don’t really have that feeling of unqualified love or reverence for a sport or team in England in the way that you guys seem to feel about the All Blacks. It doesn’t happen.
That might explain why there is so much side-eye towards the All Blacks in England and why there is so much outrage at that side-eye in New Zealand.
What did you think of the overall tournament in France?
It was really good. It sagged a bit in the middle and it was way too long. But what you want is decent crowds, good rugby and a knockout stage that feels probably epic. And it delivered on all those fronts. It could have been a bit shorter and obviously, the draw was a bit lopsided, but we got the matches at the end that the tournament deserved.
What about England?
The fact they came within two points of turning over the eventual champions, that puts credit in the bank for the coach. There was at least a coherent plan there. It wasn’t pretty rugby, the stuff that gets you off your seat or engages neutrals. But they stayed united, stuck to the plan and it was almost very effective.
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