KEY POINTS:
First joy and triumph. Then 20 years of disappointment. David Leggat talks to five former All Blacks about their World Cup experiences
1987 Murray Pierce
Born: November 1, 1957
Position: Lock
Tests: 26 1985-89
Murray Pierce would happily watch the value of his World Cup winners medal drop if it meant the Webb Ellis Cup resided in New Zealand at the end of this year.
The tall Wellington lock was a cornerstone of the 1987 triumph, playing five of the test matches, including the final against France, won 29-9.
His memories of that month revolve round the opening game, when Italy were trounced 70-6, and the final. But he vividly recalls the pressure of the occasion.
"It's great having home advantage but there's also a hell of a lot more pressure to win," he said.
"That first game was very memorable and the fashion in which we managed to gain victory that day got the country behind us. Public support just lifted from that game."
The other memory "I'll take to the grave" was what happened on the day of the final as the team left the Poenamo Hotel on the North Shore.
"We hopped on the coach and hundreds of people were outside the hotel cheering us.
"That had never happened before. We sat on the coach, obviously bloody nervous wrecks, seeing pockets of people along the way waving, shouting and hooting horns.
"`BJ' [coach Sir Brian Lochore] didn't need to give us a pep talk. We knew it was serious but it wasn't until that day heading to the stadium we thought, `Holy hell'."
And 20 years on, Pierce, a former policeman who is now managing director of Coastal Finance in Paraparaumu, north of Wellington, is disappointed he remains part of an elite group of New Zealand rugby players to have won the cup.
"Back then you'd never have picked that here we are 20 years later. We're bloody good between World Cups; we've just got to have the mental temperament to lift for the tournament itself."
And if not? "There will be a lot of gnashing of teeth, but the sun will rise the next day."
1991 Bernie McCahill
Born: June 28, 1964
Position: Second five-eights
Tests: 10, 1987-91
Bernie McCahill experienced the highs of 1987, then the ghastly low of semifinal defeat against Australia in Dublin four years later. It was a crushing experience and one the popular midfield back attributes to a mix of elements.
"It was a different feeling to 1987. Then it was new, exciting, unknown. This one there seemed to be high expectations of the team to do really well when we weren't playing particularly well," he said.
"And the expectations you feel from the public, you don't feel as much when you're playing well. In 1991 we really felt it, and it mounted as the tournament went on. We weren't playing as well as we could, or should. Some of us were past our best I suspect."
In the semifinal, "we didn't play as well as we were capable of, maybe we hadn't trained hard enough, crossed every i, dotted every t. But you couldn't take anything away from Australia. At halftime the game was over. We had to play catchup and that suited them down to the ground."
16-6 to the Wallabies, and McCahill remembers the changing room as "a morgue" afterwards.
"The place was really dead for 10-15 minutes. No one said a word. No one knew what to say. Then [flanker] Andy Earl stood up and said, `Fellas we can't do anything about it. We need to move on'. And that broke the ice."
McCahill reflected on a tour in which players were obliged to do bizarre promotions, one involving McCahill and Alan Whetton travelling round London for a day with a blonde television presenter trying to put a song together.
"I didn't particularly like being away from the boys for a day but we had to do it. It was like you weren't just concentrating on playing footy, we had to do all this other crap. There were a lot of things going on behind the scenes."
The semifinal was McCahill's 32nd and last match for his country. The All Blacks had lost twice in 30 tests from the start of the 1987 World Cup to the opening game in the 1991 cup.
"We probably thought we were 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Maybe that was the weakness. "Maybe we weren't as mentally tough or sharp as we should have been. Most of us would look back and say we should have done more."
1995 Paul Henderson
Born: September 21, 1964
Position: Flanker
Tests: 7, 1991-95
No surprise what Paul Henderson's overriding memory of 1995 is _ the final, lost 15-13 in extra time to South Africa, and the sickness which enveloped the squad in the days leading up to the Ellis Park showdown.
And when he thinks back 12 years, Henderson remains angry about what happened and insists the squad were `got'. He puts part of the problem down to a decision by coach Laurie Mains when the team settled in at their hotel for the final week, but doesn't blame Mains.
The coach decided to seclude the squad from other hotel guests in the restaurant, the idea being to minimise the chances of any problems. But in hindsight Henderson conceded that might have helped those who poisoned the players on the Wednesday before the final.
"I was one of five or six that didn't have any problem," the openside flanker recalled. "As one of the `dirty dirties' [not in the XV or reserves] I was out with the management having a meal. Then the first call came to the doctor and I remember the ashen look on his face."
Henderson is as convinced now as he was then that foul play was afoot. It was no fluke _ "no doubt whatsoever".
Henderson played his last test at the cup, and had a surprise honour for the match against Japan. Zinzan Brooke told him he'd heard a whisper `Ginge' was to be named captain.
Henderson, for some reason which amuses him in hindsight, was twitchy about it and remembers "running like a scalded cat" at one point when Mains was heading his way. Eventually he was cornered.
"`I want you to be All Black captain'," Mains told him. "Then he said, `Are you up to it?' It was like a challenge.
"I remember ringing up Mum and Dad and saying, `You're never going to believe this'."
All went well, a 145-17 belting in Bloemfontein.
Henderson said the All Blacks had arrived "fit as hell and ready to go. There was a steely determination, and we had Andrew Mehrtens and Josh Kronfeld whom no one really knew about.
"And we had the big guy [Jonah Lomu] ready to unleash hell."
As for the final, Henderson said the courage of the All Blacks that day remains with him. "It wasn't a level playing field, and I'm still filthy about it today."
1999 Norm Maxwell
Born: March 5, 1976
Position: Lock
Tests: 36, 1999-2004
`There's obviously one memory there, mate."
So quipped the tall, rangy Maxwell when asked to reflect on the fourth cup tournament.
It was his first year in the All Blacks, as part of a large influx of newcomers as John Hart took steps after five straight test defeats the previous year.
The All Blacks put 50 points on the French at Wellington in mid-year and Maxwell remembers the team playing pretty well in the early part of the tournament.
"We were touted as favourites, but with the All Blacks it's always going to be that way.
"England was our big pool game and after that win, I don't think we were supremely confident or anything like that, just trying our best."
In the semifinal at Twickenham, all was well at 24-10 up with 35 minutes left. Then the French hit a purple patch; 24-10 became 24-43, and finished 43-31.
Jeff Wilson was at fullback, Christian Cullen at centre, the critics were in full voice, but Maxwell's most vivid memory of the day is the anxiety among the players as things started to go wrong.
"The whole stress of playing for your country and the fear of losing, it's huge," he said.
"You can't take it away from the French. They did a couple of freakish things, scored a couple of tries and all of a sudden we got anxious. It's your worst nightmare and in a way you created it."
Maxwell remembers several younger players, who were not used to coping with such anxiety, not having the wisdom which comes from experience to find a way out of a situation they'd not encountered.
As he put it, "a lot of us went vacant".
"It didn't mean we didn't want to win; it was the reverse".
Maxwell spoke of the numbness afterwards. The dressing room was "dead silent".
"It felt like the end of the world. So frustrating. No one was pointing the finger; we were blown away by the whole scenario."
1999 Mark Hammett
Born: July 13, 1972
Position: Hooker
Tests: 29, 1999-2003
MARK Hammett had been at Twickenham that grim October night four years earlier. He maintains no stone had been left unturned in the leadup to the tournament in Australia and, with 1999 ringing in their ears, there was no risk of complacency.
"We'd learnt from that, there were a few of us in that 1999 team and that experience was passed on. We were clear that it didn't matter what we'd done previously didn't count for anything, so in terms of being cocky or having a feeling of just having to turn up to win, that certainly was not there."
The leadup is significant. Having been clipped 15-13 by England on a rainy Wellington night in mid-year, the All Blacks had put 50 points on both South Africa and Australia en route to winning the Tri-Nations and regaining the Bledisloe Cup.
There had been rumblings over coach John Mitchell's style and approach but Hammett remembers a tight unit by the time the tournament came round. The Bledisloe Cup win, after five years in Wallaby hands, was a massive fillip, but the next time the rivals met, in the semifinals at the Olympic Stadium, things were very different.
"We'd played some very good footy, but the Aussies are pretty smart," Hammett said. "They'd probably started to get a fairly good idea of how we were playing and perhaps we didn't change things as much as we should have.
"We certainly gave them respect, but we didn't bring our A game. The game plan that had worked well for us they shut down fairly quickly."
Hammett hinted that perhaps players didn't react to an unfamiliar situation; they were used to leading, now they trailed 19-7 with a quarter of the game left.
"There's lots of little factors. The Aussies got more of the little things right than we did. A couple of players were probably off their game, that can happen.
"You have situations in work or sport where you go out and do your very best, you can't do any more and be disappointed with what happens. That was the feeling."
