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LONDON - Throughout the ages, black-shirted warriors from the South Pacific have successfully stormed Europe's rugby citadels winning international recognition for two remote islands.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the New Zealand All Blacks are still their country's pre-eminent ambassadors and the sporting world still thrills to the daring and dazzle of their brand of rugby union.
Yet after a fifth consecutive failure at the World Cup, does the image now obscure the reality? Will the marketing men stick with a product which does not deliver what it promises? And what about the long-suffering public?
Thousands of New Zealanders paid large amounts of money to fly to France and Britain in support of their team. This week they have been travelling from Cardiff to Paris for the semi-finals and finals of what has been a wonderful tournament.
But the team they came to support has already flown back to New Zealand after losing in the quarter-finals to France.
Johan Morreau is a Rotorua doctor who paid good money to follow the All Blacks. He enjoyed Edinburgh and Cardiff and will look forward to seeing the sights of Paris. Would he have made the trip, though, if he had known the All Blacks were not going to make the semi-finals for the first time in six tournaments?
"No," Morreau told Reuters. "It cost 500 dollars ($387) for a ticket for the Scotland game and the Scots put out their second team. Now we're still here and the All Blacks aren't."
New Zealanders believed 2007, the 20th anniversary of their only World Cup, was to be their year. After they were ambushed by Australia in the semi-finals four years ago, coach Graham Henry and his team were showered with money and given total support by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.
In return, Henry's men played sublime rugby to beat the British and Irish Lions in 2005 and in the same year completed a grand slam of victories over Wales, Ireland, England and Scotland. Surely nobody was going to deny them in France.
Instead the All Blacks lost 20-18 to France in a Cardiff quarter-final. Henry and his assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith will be gone by the end of the year and an independent review has been promised.
Already denial has set in among those segments of the New Zealand public who phone radio talkback shows. We are still the best, the callers say, and would still be in the tournament if the English referee Wayne Barnes had not made several wrong calls and missed a forward pass in the second French try.
The internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia had to move swiftly after some enraged All Blacks supporters posted a mock obituary of Barnes saying he had been lynched after the game.
Other rugby followers wonder about the quality of the New Zealand decision-making against France, given that they won 72 per cent of the ball. They question the policy of rotating the players constantly and ask if leading players were unduly pampered when they were pulled out of the Super 14 series.
"It's an often-used expression, but life skills are critical for young men," wrote former New Zealand prop John Drake, a member of the 1987 side.
"Playing rugby and getting handsomely paid is fine but players need a balance and it's important that rugby is not the be all and end all.
"The All Blacks have lost crucial matches in recent times due to players being unable to react to pressure."
For the time being, the corporate sponsors, who include adidas and Air New Zealand, are sticking with the All Blacks.
"What we still have is a long-term relationship with the most iconic brand in world rugby," Craig Lawson, the New Zealand managing director of adidas, told the New Zealand Herald.
"The All Blacks still attract the biggest crowds everywhere they go around the world."
In four years' time, New Zealand host the World Cup knowing that whatever they do in the meantime the rest of the world know they are eminently beatable when it matters most.
Even victory at home will only lead to another debate about the All Blacks' ability to win the Cup abroad. One way or the other it is not a happy time for their fans.
- REUTERS
