Richie McCaw and the All Blacks were worthy world champions. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Richie McCaw and the All Blacks were worthy world champions. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The way Steve Hansen and Richie McCaw went about defending their World Cup title was masterful, writes Gregor Paul
When All Blacks captain Richie McCaw talked the day after retaining the World Cup, he said his sense of satisfaction couldn't have been deeper.
He wasn't relieved the way he had been four years earlier. He wasn't elated or euphoric. He was content that he and his men had achieved exactly what they had come to England to do.
To understand why he felt like that, the clock has to be wound back to January 2012. The country, having waited for 24 years, was still celebrating the All Blacks' World Cup victory. All was good with life in those summer months that followed the 8-7 defeat of France on Labour Weekend 2011. No one was looking forward, everyone seemingly content to live in the moment for as long as they could.
Part of that reluctance to think about what lay ahead was driven by a foreboding certainty that the only way was down for the All Blacks. A new, unproven coaching team was coming in and they were inheriting a team of ageing athletes who had little, if anything, left to prove.
The golden era was coming to an end. The legends of some great players - Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith - had been written. They couldn't add another chapter as compelling as the story of their redemption from the failure of 2007 to the glory of 2011.
One man saw it differently, though. New coach Steve Hansen was thinking beginning not end.
He'd barely been in his new job when he gathered his senior players and laid out his vision. He was thinking big. He asked Carter, McCaw and the others if they still had the desire to be better players. There had to be a genuine hunger to improve.
When he was reassured everyone was on board, his next goal was for the All Blacks to play like world champions through to the end of 2015. Most previous world champion sides had gradually lost their aura in the years following their triumph. It had proven an impossible task for any champion team to hold their form through a four-year cycle.
Hansen wanted to break that mould. His vision was that the world champion All Blacks would become the most dominant team in history. It would ultimately be for others to judge whether they achieved their goal but he had two criteria in mind.
He wanted relentlessly excellent performances between 2012 and 2015 and wanted the All Blacks to become the first side to win back-to-back World Cups. Achieve these and history would no doubt judge his All Blacks kindly.
McCaw's satisfaction as he sat at England rugby's playing base on November 1 was the result of knowing that he and his teammates had nailed the brief. A journey that had begun in January 2012 ended just as he had hoped it would - probably, in fact, better than he had imagined.
Coming into 2015, the All Blacks had lost only two tests under Hansen. They had enjoyed three magnificent years - posting the perfect season in 2013 - and had, without any doubt, played like world champions.
But it was imperative that for all the breathtaking rugby they had played since 2012 to be properly valued, that they remained just as dominant in 2015. It wasn't going to be easy. Players are aiming to peak in September and October but still have to win tests in July and August.
There is the added tension of competing for World Cup spots and then turning up at the tournament and navigating through seven tests in six weeks. On every level, the All Blacks nailed it. It was a supremely well planned and executed campaign, starting with the selection of 41 players in mid-July. Hansen wanted to be sure he and his fellow selectors put the right 31 players on the plane to England and to give everyone in the wider frame an opportunity to press their claims.
The tricky part was ensuring continuity of team performance while making personnel changes. A relatively poor performance in Sydney which ended in defeat to the Wallabies was the only blip in the World Cup build-up. The more important elements to emerge, though, were the form of the senior players and the certainty around who to take to England.
When the squad was announced in late August, there wasn't a quibble to be had. There was no burning sense of injustice - with maybe the only point of contention being the injured Waisake Naholo making it ahead of Charles Piutau.
If phase one was picking the right players, phase two was getting through pool pool ticking all the boxes Hansen felt needed ticking. This was the point where his plan diverted from public expectation. It was also the point where his plan proved to be a stroke of genius.
Hansen didn't want to romp through games against Namibia, Georgia and Tonga. Instead, he identified areas where he felt the All Blacks needed improvement.
They stayed on their feet at the tackled ball area, trusting their line speed and defensive numbers rather than competing on the ground for the ball. They didn't want to kick, instead trying to beat the rush defences they faced through their decision-making and option-taking with ball in hand.
Some rusty execution, inspired opposition defence and pedantic refereeing combined to leave the All Blacks looking out-of-sorts. Frustration brewed and doubts grew, but not inside the All Blacks camp.
"I can understand why there's a bit of concern at home," Hansen said before the quarter-final against France. "It's because they're at home and not here. They don't know everything we've been doing and they'll be a little bit apprehensive about a few things, I guess, because they don't have any control over it.
Image 1 of 18: New Zealand All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick and Kieran Read puts pressure on the kick of Australian halfback Will Genia. Photo / Brett Phibbs
"We know what's on the line, as everyone else does. Without being disrespectful to the pool rounds, it's not the same edge [as a knockout match]. It's not the same edge when you play Namibia because you know you're going to win the game."
Hansen held his nerve and the All Blacks earned their just rewards. Their patience paid off in their quarter-final in Cardiff where they obliterated France in one of the best World Cup performances ever witnessed. It was a magical night when every pass stuck. France skipper Thierry Dusautoir said afterwards it had felt like there were six All Blacks for every Frenchman.
Experience, composure and sheer willpower was required to beat South Africa, as well as a superior tactical approach where the All Blacks kicked and chased more effectively in the rain.
In the final, the All Blacks were relentless. They applied pressure across the park with and without the ball, kicked their goals, converted half chances and then quashed Australia's fightback.
The rugby in those last two games was exactly what the All Blacks had expected and planned for. They knew the pressure they would be under, understood that at certain points they would be scrambling to stay in the game and would have to come up with a way of changing the momentum. In both tests, they responded perfectly, and it was that which had given McCaw his sense of satisfaction.
"The game was a bit tighter going to the last few seconds [against France at Eden Park] and it was just a massive relief four years ago," he said. "This time, we saw it, rather than just having to win because of the reasons that have gone before ... Rather than a huge sense of relief, it was satisfaction we got the job done."
• Every day this week, we ran the finalists for the Herald's Sporting Achievement of the Year, building up to today's announcement of the All Blacks as the supreme winners.
Friday: Lydia Ko, Scott Dixon. Thursday: Lisa Carrington, Black Caps. Wednesday: Blair Tuke & Peter Burling, Hamish Bond & Eric Murray. Tuesday: Linda Villumsen, track cycling squad. Monday: Kane Williamson.
