All Blacks 2023 Rugby World Cup squad. Video / Carson Bluck
By Liam Napier in England
Can the All Blacks regain the confidence and momentum they built earlier this year – or has it been squandered by a series of disruptions? That pressing doubt hangs over their World Cup campaign.
The mood surrounding the All Blacks has altered drasticallyin the last month. Just ask the many Kiwis, some of whom hid their jerseys, as they slunk away from Twickenham in bewilderment with the 35-7 blowout they witnessed.
From on the rise to new lows in the form of their worst defeat in history, the All Blacks continue to test the faith.
Last month the dominant win over the Wallabies at the Melbourne Cricket Ground marked the first time in Ian Foster’s era the All Blacks delivered three compelling performances in succession. As they climbed the rankings and consistently improved performances, all signs pointed to genuine World Cup contenders.
Locking away the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup, while not the pinnacle prize this year, represented significant progress for a team that has emerged from consuming adversity.
Widespread changes to the first-choice team were, understandably, made for the final, shaky home test against the Wallabies in Dunedin prior to the World Cup squad reveal. That selection strategy left many starters needing to return for the Springboks at a sold-out Twickenham, where the All Blacks made no qualms about their desire to firmly reinstate their credentials.
Physically and psychologically, the All Blacks were instead rocked by waves of green man mountains as the unpredictable pendulum wildly swings again two weeks out from the World Cup.
Defeat itself is far from terminal but the one-sided nature of it evokes serious concerns.
Sure, this was a preliminary fixture with minimal implications. Sure, the All Blacks suffered from Scott Barrett’s dismissal late in the first half. Perhaps on the eve of the World Cup minds weren’t where they needed to be, either.
The rattled reactions, lack of composure and inability to adapt and adjust under extreme pressure from the largely first-choice team was, however, alarming to spark visions of the second Irish test defeat in Dunedin last year.
How quickly the All Blacks can amend their set piece, discipline and handling issues while recovering from further injury setbacks remains to be seen.
The All Blacks starting team, which will be missing Brodie Retallick, Shannon Frizell, Tyrel Lomax and possibly Barrett from the forward pack for the World Cup opener against France in Paris, now faces the prospect of attempting to regain their clarity and confidence after one underwhelming outing together in six weeks.
The scoreboard says it all at Twickenham. Photo / Getty
An isolated reality check isn’t necessarily a bad omen at this juncture. It does, however, serve a timely reminder that the All Blacks are no guarantees to progress past their World Cup quarterfinal date with the Springboks, Ireland or Scotland.
“We’re confident,” All Blacks coach Ian Foster said as his side prepare to depart for their camp in Germany before arriving in France. “It didn’t look like that, and I know we got a good spanking so I’m not hiding from that fact. We’re not panicking about that result last night.
“We knew we were going to get challenged. It’s not the result we wanted. I still believe in the plan. I still believe the group that needed to play played. Scott not as long as I would’ve liked.
“We’ve now got a good litmus test of where we’re at. Everyone is in the same boat after this weekend. We’ve got to use our camp in Germany really smart and go into France and get stuck into what’s going to be an exciting World Cup.
Malcolm Marx of South Africa tackles Jordie Barrett during the test at Twickenham. Photo / Getty
“There was a lot of emotion in the sheds afterwards but we’ve just got to calm down and say ‘that’s World Cups’. If you’re looking for a dress rehearsal that’s perfect.”
The remodelled All Blacks coaching staff have proven their ability to regroup and respond in the past year but while Foster attempts to project a sense of calm, the humbling Boks defeat threatens to leave psychological scars for his players.
“That’s our job as a team to deal with that. It’s actually okay to be psychologically down after a game like that because you put so much into it. When you look at the bigger picture about what we wanted to achieve out of that game we got everything we expected. We just didn’t deal with it as well as we expected.
“We’ve got to go and fix that. We’ve got a lot of belief in what we’ve been doing. We know the first game of the World Cup is going to be big. It’s going to be just like that, and we will probably be attacked in very similar ways.
“We know we’re going to need to be at our best particularly at that set piece area.”
Regaining their best in a compressed timeframe leaves it all before the All Blacks.
