Ian Foster’s All Blacks stand on the precipice of completing their great redemption tale after a 44-6 win over Argentina. Cheree Kinnear and Elliott Smith unpack all the action from Stade de France. Video / NZ Herald / SkySports
Five talking points from a rugby weekend that provided the good, the bad, and the very ugly.
Saving the game
Unheralded and unloved before the World Cup, the 2023 All Blacks now need to win the tournament in France to save rugby from itself.
South Africa’s 16-15 victory over Englandin the second semifinal had a heart-stopping last 12 minutes that shouldn’t conceal the fact the rest of the match was so boring it felt like The Game They Play in Hell.
If you hated rugby and wanted to make sure someone who had never seen the sport was forever turned off by it, then a video of the first half, when England (four penalty goals) led the Springboks (two penalty goals) 12-6, would be the perfect vehicle to use.
British critics have lauded England’s performance as “wondrous”, “skilful” and “heroic”. In fact, England actually reduced a game where running with the ball in your hands was the original, and still most important, point of difference with football, to a gruesome kick-fest.
Being a Kiwi, parochialism plays a role in me wanting the All Blacks to win the title next weekend.
But hand on heart, I swear that just as strong a motivation is my love for rugby that’s played with daring, where attacking opportunities are seized, and scoring tries is the first goal.
Of course, I want New Zealand to take the Cup. But I want them to win with flair and class, not with the dead hand England use to try to squeeze and bore opponents out of the game.
There’s never been an All Blacks coach in the same situation as Ian Foster is in now.
An unforgiving Kiwi public has slagged plenty of national coaches before. When John Hart, in 1999, and Graham Henry, in 2007, didn’t coach their teams to the final of a World Cup, they were vilified by fans and the media.
There’s been boardroom condemnation too. Laurie Mains was told by his chairman Eddie Tonks in 1992 his appointment as All Blacks coach meant “the s*** will hit the fan now”. At the 2003 World Cup, after the All Blacks had lost a semifinal, New Zealand Rugby chairman Jock Hobbs said the board was so disgruntled with John Mitchell. “We might have advertised the coaching position even if the All Blacks had won the Cup.”
But no All Blacks coach at the Cup has known he was being replaced 10 months before his team played the final.
If the All Blacks beat South Africa in Paris, and there’s a good chance they will, Foster will almost certainly be offered a knighthood.
After surviving the great Kiwi threshing machine, few would deserve it more.
All Blacks coach Ian Foster has answered plenty of critics during the Rugby World Cup. Photo / Getty Images
A special talent
The depth of Will Jordan’s talent continues to astound. His speed, kicking and handling skills are matched by a temperament so icy he makes chess players look frantic.
Great players have a gift, that can’t be coached, of somehow being in the right place on the field. Dan Carter had that knack. In this generation of players, Jordan is the one with the same uncanny sense of space and time.
In the All Blacks’ 44-6 dismissal of a wildly outclassed Argentina, Jordan was his usual impeccable self. In his third try, in the 73rd minute, he made the extraordinary look easy. Every element, from his dart past three tacklers to his beautifully weighted kick ahead and his effortless regather for the try, was perfect.
Think discipline - and then more discipline
The only downside in the All Blacks’ semifinal victory was the yellow card for Scott Barrett, which even the most one-eyed New Zealand fan couldn’t argue with.
If there’s a gap in the All Blacks’ armoury now, it’s committing pointless infringements. We saw Handre Pollard’s nerveless conversion and penalty kick to win the semifinal with England. In the final against England in 2019, he kicked six penalties. The Boks with Pollard are not a team you want to offer shots at goal to.
That’s the way to do it
Meanwhile, the two best watches of the weekend came in Wellington, when the Black Ferns showed huge courage but couldn’t overhaul France, who won their women’s international 18-17, and in New Plymouth, where Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay played a brilliant NPC final.
The New Plymouth game had everything. A noisy, joyful crowd of 13,000 people. Two teams who ran with freedom and purpose, until Taranaki edged to a 22-19 title-winning victory. And there was a moment when you could have sworn Taranaki coach Neil Barnes, a man who epitomises the good buggers in grassroots rugby, had to wipe away a tear at the final whistle.
Barnes was 100 per cent right when after the game, he made a plea for national officials to work on bringing tribalism back to the game.
