by Richie McCaw
But it turned out not to be the Tri Nations as we’ve come to know it.
The day after a preliminary run-around against Fiji at Carisbrook—the last test there—we watched a very strange Springboks team get stuffed 39–20 in Sydney. There was a reason for all the no-names on the Springbok team-sheet. No fewer than 21 of their first-choice players were injured and unable to play.
Before we got a chance to sympathise with such a dreadful run of bad luck for the poor old Bokkies, reports came through of many of those same ‘injured’ players training up a storm at a secret location up on the high veldt. We weren’t likely to make a fuss about it, however, because we were planning to do much the same ourselves.
We decided that our main objective for the Tri Nations was not in fact the Tri Nations but the Bledisloe Cup. To retain that, we had to win one of the two tests against the Aussies. We still wanted to win both trophies, but the Bledisloe was a must-have, whereas the Tri Nations was a like-to-have. As Shag said, who remembers who won the Tri Nations in 2007?
Well, apart from us. We won it. In last place were the winners of the 2007 RWC, South Africa.
I’d like to be able to say that our concentration on the Bledisloe was due to history and tradition et cetera, but it also had a lot to do with our developing dislike of the Aussie team, and a need to get our foot back on their throat after what happened in Hong Kong last year. It wasn’t just Cooper’s spray-and-shove after O’Connor’s winning try, and it wasn’t just their prolonged celebrations after the final whistle—after all, they had just broken a losing streak of 10 tests. Nor was it just because they refused to have a beer with us—if Robbie was worried that familiarity might breed contempt, it’d be difficult to see how there could be much downside there any more. It was also because they’d developed into genuine contenders.
Happy loosies after the Eden Park Bledisloe Cup test, 6 July 2011—Kieran Read, Jerome Kaino, me, Liam Messam and Adam Thomson.
After Hong Kong, they went on to Europe and were frighteningly good against France, absolutely smashing them 59–16. That backline in particular, of formerly wayward talents like Kurtley Beale and Cooper, shred France. After seeing that, Ma’a said they were now more dangerous than we were.
Before the Tri Nations, there’d been lots of trans-Tasman chat reported, that they were ready, that they’d timed their rise perfectly while we were on the slide. So it was hardly surprising that we were well primed for them after a 40–7 whacking of a Bok team full of names we didn’t expect to see in their top RWC team.
In my notes for the team leaders’ meeting before the Wallaby test at Eden Park, I wrote: Mindset: Physically and mentally stuff them through ruthless execution.
I wish all games were that predictable! By halftime the contest was effectively over: we scored twice from Cooper mistakes and were 20–nil up. We pressured the Genia–Cooper axis and closed it and Beale and the rest down. It wasn’t just the 30–14 scoreline that eased the angst after Hong Kong, it was the way we unfurled a pretty complete statement from the different components of our team: from the scrum, from Jerome and Kieran and me, from Dan and the guys outside him.
After the game, we didn’t bother having a beer with them: there was bound to be a plane or bus they had to catch.
With the Bledisloe back in the cabinet for another year, we turned our attention to the return games, against South Africa in Port Elizabeth and Australia in Brisbane—although we were already looking beyond them to the beginning of the RWC, 12 days after the match in Brisbane.
Ted decided to use the trip to Africa to test-drive the younger and fringe players, and part of that entailed leaving most of the leadership group behind in order to see how they coped without us. There was some debate about whether I should go and not play. But, as Ted pointed out, if I got injured during the World Cup, then this was the way it would have to be. Gulp. Luckily, I hadn’t seen the Andy Dalton footage at that stage.
So Brad, Kieran, Dan, Mils and I got sent home, and on television I watched an All Black team run out in Port Elizabeth which had one back who’d smashed the Boks in Wellington three weeks before, and four forwards. The Boks side was even more different, after a truly remarkable mass rehab: just two backs survived from the earlier game.
The Tri Nations championship had become an exercise in shadow-boxing.
The Boks won, but the real winners and losers were revealed after the final whistle, when the RWC teams had to be named. At least the Boks had completed their Tri Nations responsibilities—last again, just like 2007—and the guys who missed out could slink off home to the comfort of their families. Not so the All Blacks.
Crocky hadn’t made the squad for South Africa and probably expected his fate, but Liam Messam, Hosea Gear and Jarrad Hoeata had to travel back from South Africa to Sydney with the rest of the team after missing the cut. Awkward for everyone. On reaching Sydney, the RWC squad flew north to Brisbane to join Kieran, Brad, Mils, Dan and me, while the rejects flew home. That was a tough and hardly satisfactory way of doing things, one that the IRB could have avoided with a little flexibility, and it had an unsettling effect on those who made the cut as well.
We spent the first day in Brisbane doing media for the RWC, and didn’t get to run together until Wednesday, not ideal for a test with the Tri Nations championship at stake.
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered what sort of preparation we’d had, because the Aussies were really bloody fired up and hit us hard for the first 20 to 30 minutes. I found myself standing under the sticks two tries down, with the score already out to 20–3. Shit, if we ship any more points this could really blow out. I told the guys that this was the moment where we saw what we were made of.
We’d been going side to side, too lateral, so we changed that and tightened it up, engaged them, really took them on. It was a bit wet and we started making them tackle us around the fringes. They struggled to hang in there, and we clawed our way back to 20–20 and it felt like we had the edge, had them sorted—apart from a bit of Genia brilliance which took the game and the Tri Nations away from us.
There was a bit of post-game controversy around Quade Cooper’s attempt to knee me in the head as he was extricating himself from a ruck. The intent of what he was trying to do pissed me off more than the execution. Shortly after that happened, I was carrying and should have passed, but I lit up when I saw Quade standing in front of me and clattered into him instead. I was disappointed in myself doing that, letting it get personal. There’s no need—players like Quade get sorted. Sooner or later, they get their beans.
‘. . . but I lit up when I saw Quade standing in front of me. . .’, against Australia, Brisbane, 2011.
Of much greater importance were Kieran’s high ankle injury, and Thommo’s elbow damage. If either were serious, the coaches had a dilemma, thanks to the IRB. They couldn’t call anyone else into the squad unless they were prepared to rule that player out for the whole tournament. Thankfully, the early indications were that Thommo’s wasn’t that serious and that Reado would be back before the business end of the RWC.
While it’s galling seeing the Aussies as Tri Nations champions and giving them belief that they’ve got it over us again, there were really important things I took away from the game in Brisbane. We were in a deep hole and we got back to 20–20 and you could see it in their eyes that they were gone. Brad saw it too. He was as pissed off as I was about losing, but said it could be the best thing for us. ‘It’s great that they think they’ve got it over us,’ he told me. ‘We know they were there for the taking.’
While it gave me the shits that we weren’t able to take advantage of it and finish them, that moment will come round again, in a much more important game. I’ll be looking for it. We won’t let it slip away next time.
My foot came through the Tri Nations okay, although it was aching a bit during the week before the Brisbane game. I can’t risk doing the kind of training I used to lap up, road running, shuttle sprints, yo-yos, but after all I’
ve been through, I’m grateful to be here in camp, on the cusp of the RWC. So far, so good—Andy Dalton stays on freeze-frame.
Opening World Cup match against Tonga.
We watch television pictures of the build-up for the opening on a beautiful clear sunny Auckland spring afternoon—the arrival of the waka at Queens Wharf, the crowds pouring down to the waterfront, so many that it takes the organisers and the Auckland public transport system by surprise. I’m thinking about the game and trying not to get too engrossed in what’s happening out there, a few hundred metres from our hotel, but I’m also thinking, Wow, it’s on.
We see a little of the buskers and musicians on the Fan Trail along Great North Road, but don’t see anything of the opening ceremony at Eden Park, because we’re not allowed out on to the field to warm up, but it sounds amazing from the changing rooms.
The game itself is a bit of a one-half wonder. We play well in the first half, with structure and urgency, and go to sleep in the second. Maybe that has to do with the late start—the second half kicks off when I’d be normally doing the after-match interviews. The main thing is that it’s a good competitive match for the opening of the RWC, in which the minnows aren’t monstered. Tonga plays well, particularly in the second half, and 41–10 is a respectable scoreline for both sides. The other big thing is that there are no major injuries, and that includes me—I have that rare sensation this year of being on two functional pegs.
Which proves to be short-lived. I strain my calf at Thursday training in Hamilton preparing for Japan, and Dan feels his hammy tighten. When our minor injuries are announced, some in the media suspect rotation by stealth, but that’s bullshit—I’ve already done all the media for what would have been my 100th test.
My calf isn’t that bad and if it was a knockout match I might have played, but, realistically, Japan isn’t worth the risk, even though Buck Shelford’s on the radio saying that if we don’t play our top XV we’ll lose. We’ve come to expect that play-your-top-team-every-week stuff from elements in the media, but not from the likes of Buck and Fitzy. I hope when I’m retired, I’m able to recognise that the game will have changed since I played.
Ironically, it might be Japan who are pulling the rotation tricks. There are 10 changes to the team that did quite well against France last week, eventually going down 47–21. Their main objectives are Tonga and Canada, so coach John Kirwan might be keeping his powder dry against us.
After a minute’s silence for the victims of the earthquake in Christchurch and the tsunami on the east coast of Japan, we beat them 83–7. Given Colin Slade’s lack of match practice, it’s another important milestone for his regaining confidence and match fitness.
Some pundits reckon every tournament needs a major upset to get it fizzing. Down in the bars of Queenstown, England are doing their best to make that unnecessary, with royal shenanigans and dwarf-throwing, but Ireland oblige anyway, by throttling Australia 15–6 at Eden Park the following day.
That really throws the seedings and tournament predictions into disarray. It means that the two halves of the draw are now divided neatly into northern and southern hemisphere battles. It also means that if we get to the final, we won’t be playing Australia. They’re now on our side of the draw. We’ll have to beat them to make the final . . . unless we lose to France in our next pool match, which will throw all the balls into the air again and put us on the other side of the draw.
I can’t say I’m fazed by all these permutations. In 2007, we constantly looked at what was happening around us in the other pools, trying to suss out who we’d be playing when. We got ahead of ourselves. This time, I don’t think like that, I don’t even look at what’s up the road beyond the next game. My attitude is: who cares what side of the draw we’re on? We’ll have to play all the good bastards at some point, and whenever that is, we’ll have to beat them. Next up is France.
There’s no way of knowing whether France have the same attitude. If they lose to us and finish second in our pool, they’d be playing the knockout phase against teams they play regularly in the Six Nations—England or Wales or Ireland. There’s a theory that they would prefer to be over there, and avoid the All Blacks, Aussies and Boks. There’s another theory that France do best when they don’t care. That’s a theory I don’t subscribe to—I think they play their best, like most teams, when they’re most under the hammer and fearful of failure.
Whatever, we’ve just got to beat whichever French team turns up—and I reckon we’ve got the team to do it. Dan’s back, and this is our best team, apart from Mils and Kieran who are not quite right yet. Thommo goes into No. 8 for this game, and he and I plan to swap roles a bit, with him packing 8 on defence and me on attack.
There’s a bit of media talk of revenge for Cardiff, but it’s not a knockout game and whoever loses will still get a second chance, perhaps even an easier road. But we’re not thinking like that. We want to beat them, really make a statement, so we pull the emotional trigger with some powerful stuff from the aftermath of a France/New Zealand test some time ago.
It’s also my 100th test match, the most by any All Black, one ahead of Mils, who will have to wait another week. Some stats don’t matter that much, but this one does—it’s an incredible honour to have gone out into battle in the black jersey a hundred times. I know that there’s going to be a special presentation by Jock Hobbs after the match, a special All Black cap, and I don’t want to be walking over to receive that from a great rugby man like Jock after captaining the All Blacks to their first loss in a RWC pool game.
That doesn’t happen. But something else happens that from a personal point of view is almost as bad.
France start well, keeping possession, running good angles, stretching us, yes, but our defence is up to it and they don’t collect any points for their efforts. It seems like it might be a Toulouse kind of day for them, rather than Biarritz, and it’s certainly not the French team that turned up to Cardiff. Even Dusautoir doesn’t look that interested—I can’t tell that from his facial expression or anything he says or doesn’t say—but he misses a tackle on Cory Jane that takes us to 12–nil.
We win comfortably 37–17 and I would have no idea whether that suits French plans or not. Smithy tells me Lievremont’s been saying that France would struggle to beat the All Blacks twice at home, so they’d best make it the one that counts. Then some of their players come into our changing room for a drink after the game and a couple of them say as they’re leaving, ‘See you in the Final.’
The result might be the equivalent of a Gallic shrug, who’d know, but there are a lot of good things to take out of the game. We’ve lifted ourselves to a new level, killing them in the scrums and beating them in the collisions. Collective pace and power. And Dan is magic, right back to his best.
‘The rapier came from Carter,’ writes Gregor Paul. ‘He played with his head up again and that calm authority that his team-mates thrive on. His passing had that easy rhythm that lets everyone know he’s in the zone—ready to play and have a bit of fun. He made an electric break to set up Israel Dagg’s first try, where he dummied and disappeared. He even dropped a goal for no particular reason but to show he could. Gutted by his efforts at the last Word Cup, he chose the right night to play such a big game. Dagg, Richard Kahui, Cory Jane and Sonny Bill Williams . . . all fed off Carter’s energy and enterprise.’
It’s not all about Dan, of course—‘this beautifully organised, dynamic machine that was slick and clever’—is gratifying for the team in general. ‘Favourites by reputation yesterday morning; the All Blacks were favourites by right last night.’
Dan is magic, right back to his best in the pool match against France. Morgan Parra is the Frenchman.
Jock Hobbs presents me with my 100th test cap. It was an emotional moment.
Which is great, except that it’s also the day my foot goes bang.
Right before halftime, I take the ball up. When I step, it feels like I’ve been kicked in the foot or jumped on.
I feel a pop or a crack. Shit, I hope that was a kick. When the whistle goes for halftime, I jog in and tell Doc Deb that it’s a bit sore, that I heard it go. She says I’ll be right, which is what I want to hear, but running back out on the field, it hits me—Fuck, that’s sore! Then the whistle goes and I carry on and get to the end of my 100th game.
By the time the presentation is made by Jock, it takes a lot of self-control to walk over to him, rather than hobble. But, hell, in the presence of a man who’s done so much to give me and the other All Blacks a career and to bring the Cup here, and who is so obviously ravaged by his illness, it’s not that hard. I’m not the most emotional guy around, but that presentation really gets to me: what Jock says, the fact that it’s him, huge numbers of the crowd sticking around for it and chanting my name, the cap.
The boys also have a presentation for me for my 100th. It was supposed to happen in the changing room, but they made the mistake of telling security at Eden Park they were carrying a shotgun and, even though it was broken down and in a case, there was no way. So we do it back at the hotel—a beautiful under-and-over with my name engraved on the butt. Something I’ll always treasure.
I have a beer and enjoy the moment and the performance by the team and try not to think about the foot too much, and keep those pictures of Andy Dalton at bay. The odd time the foot’s been sore after a game, it’s been fine again the next day, so Deb and I are hopeful that it’s just that.