All Blacks vs Pumas in Sucktown: poll included

[Eugene Wrayburn]

I reckon Argentina are playing as well as I've ever seen them play. They should have beaten South Africa in both Tests, and were the better side for half the match against NZ. Their issue still seems to be running out of steam in the final quarter, which is where SA caught (and nearly caught) them. It was the final half-hour in the AB's game, but same principle. I like the ball-handling skills they're displaying, their back row are tough and effective, and their backs can actually play now. I hope they put on a good effort against Australia - they could win.

I don't think it's a fitness issue, more a concentration issue - speaking as a fan of a team that used to perennially have the same problem. I do agree that they are an excellent side. I'm slightly at a loss as to how one beats this NZ side. The Argentinians went for taking you on at the fast game but discovered they couldn't do it as well as you for as long as you. However you can't just grind the game out because you need the defensive speed to cope with the ball being kept alive or rucked in an instant. Any ideas chaps? I'm asking for a Gatfriend.

[rowan]

Yes, I agree with you, Spy, despite my previous comments directly after the match. Argentina have made great strides over the past decade in particular, with two World Cup semis appearances and now making a habit of beating the Boks. They were among the last of the 'top tier' nations to fully embrace professionalism, but since making that transition, in order to capacitate entry into SANZAR competitions, they have clearly joined the elite fold. Their Everest, like everyone else's, is obviously the All Blacks, and sadly they didn't get close in this encounter. Their best chances were obviously the draw in Buenos Aires in 1985 - when hulking number 8 Ernesto Ure drove to within centimetres of the All Blacks' line in the final seconds, and 2001 - when Felipe Contepomi failed to find touch with a clearing kick in injuy time, allowing the All Blacks to run it back and score the winner. The latter was soul-destroying, and might have seen Los Pumas added to SANZAR several years before they actually were. Still, now they're in the competition and will only get stronger. It may not be this year or next, but that elusive victory over the All Blacks is going to come . . .

[Spy]

I agree that it does seem to be concentration rather than fitness that is letting them down later in the game.

The All Blacks are playing well, and it's great to see. The usual way teams have got the upper hand on us is fast linespeed shutting down any attempt at backplay. Remove the space. It's hard to do that consistently for 80min though, and I also think we have a pack at the moment with no obvious weaknesses - good lineout, adequate-to-goodish scrum, physical in the tight - so I don't think grinding and bullying alone will work. It's probably still the basis for a NH win over a NZ side though - win the forward battle, play territory, kick penalties, aggressive defence, shut NZ down and feed off mistakes. It may not be enough, but I think it's probably the Lions best chance. Try and out-NZ NZ and the Lions will lose, IMO.

[Lizard]

How do you beat the All Blacks?

TL;DR is that you need some fundamental structures beneath national team level to be consistent at the All Blacks level. A one-off win might be achievable if the stars align of course.

1. Ensure financial control of the game sits with the national Union (sorry, France).

2. Ensure that there is a broad consensus from the grassroots up, but particularly at senior domestic level, that the main point of the whole system is to product the best possible national team. (Sorry, England)

3. Indoctrinate the whole nation to believe that there is no higher purpose than playing rugby for your country (sorry, Australia)

4. Ensure all players, regardless of position, have superlative basic skills (catch, pass, dummy, step, kick, tackle) and can perform them under pressure. (Sorry, Scotland)

5. Develop players' mental skills to enable them to remain calm and make good decisions under pressure. (Sorry, Wales)

6. Have a variety of match strategies and tactics available, and be ready and able to switch, mid-match if necessary. (Sorry, South Africa)

7. Have sufficient player depth (and strength of domestic rugby) that several players are available in any position who could step up and fill a gap in the national squad. (Sorry, Ireland)

[rowan]

8. Have a healthy supply of explosive Polynesians in the backline. (Sorry, everybody except the Pacific Islands)

9. Have a decent forward pack. (Sorry, Pacific Islands)

[Lizard]

8. Have a healthy supply of explosive Polynesians in the backline. (Sorry, everybody except the Pacific Islands)

9. Have a decent forward pack. (Sorry, Pacific Islands)

Erm, what about Kerevi, Naiyatavoro, Speight, Feeuai-Sautia, Kuridrani, Toomua, Folau, Leali'ifano, Tomane etc?

Or are you classifying Australia as a Pacific Island?

England of course has had Manu Tuilagi, Rokoduguni, Hape, Vainikolo and Flutey.

Even France has Vakatawa and Nakaitaci. And I'm not even going to start on Maori Italians and Tongan Japanese.

Your point (which I know is at least partly tongue in cheek) is really that NZ does have access to a nearby/present population of physically adept men for whom (generalising grossly) a shot at a pro rugby career is one of the only realistic routes to financial security.

You could point to the ARU's utter neglect of Australia's own indigenous population (compared with AFL and NRL, even). Or South Africa's sloth like moves towards "transformation," or even England's failure to move their game much from a posh boys sport to one that chavs from the housing estates might be interested in.

The other point of course is how bereft the All Blacks backline would be if we had to rely solely on players like Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith, Conrad Smith, Ryan Crotty etc*. We might have some issues at half-back and left wing, I guess.

*Cue shitstorm of replies telling me that one or more of these pale faces is in fact proud tangata whenua.

[rowan]

Yes, the prominence of Pacific Islanders in the Australian team is testimony to their natural aptitude for the sport, as they represent only 1% of that nation's population, and the cream of the talent will invariably be sucked off by the higher profile league code. By Pacific Islanders I mean Polynesians and Melanesians of either Pacific Island ancestry or birth, just to be clear. In the European nations, as well as Japan's, it is clear that we are talking about poaching in the vast majority of cases. In New Zealand, however we are talking about 7.5% of the population, and almost twice as many as Australia with appox. 300 K compared to 170 K.

Yes, the comment was partly tongue in cheek, but two things coincidental to New Zealand's rise to the top (having played 2nd string to SA during much of the amateur era, and increasingly struggling to maintain its dominance of Australia toward the end of that period) were the transition to professionalism and the arrival of Pacific Islanders on the scene.

Australia has undoubtedly neglected its indigenous population, and continues to do so. It may be among the worst examples in this respect, but is hardly alone. So I won't go into that. But I don't think the rugby codes can really be faulted in that regard, as both union and league have appeared to embrace players of all ethnicities - although union was traditionally the domain of the upper class schools, like in Britain and South Africa, & thereby inaccessible to the native population. The other issue is that Aborigines and Pacific Islanders are very different both physically and temperamentally; the former having more in common with the people of the Indian sub-continent than they do with Samoans & Tongans, for example. They may produce some great individual players like the Ella brothers, but when a rugby official declared (many years ago) that they ought to show the 'same fighting spirit as the Maori' he was quickly dismissed as a racist and never heard from again.

The influx of Pacific Islanders into New Zealand began in earnest in the 1960s, so that in rugby terms it reached fruition in the 1980s. Initially they gravitated more toward league, primarily because it was professional, and also in reaction to union's ongoing contacts with Apartheid South Africa. But that began to change in the shamateur era as the Springboks were removed from the equation and the inaugural World Cup heralded the dawn of a more glamorous new age for the hitherto beleagured code. & among the stars of the inaugural tournament was a Samoan - Michael Jones.

Inevitably the Pacific Islanders have had their own influence on the game in New Zealand, and the likes of Barrett, Crotty & the Smiths, et al, can be thankful for this. During the amateur era it was in the backline that the All Blacks were most often found wanting against the Springboks - and even the Wallabies at times. Traditionally New Zealand played a forward-dominated game, honed to near perfection in the wet and slushy conditions of the nation's winters. But when matched in that department, as they invariably were in South Africa, they tended to come off 2nd best. Indeed, that was evident as recently as the Cavaliers tour of 1986, when Gerber and co ran riot. But with the arrival of Pacific Islanders on the scene, New Zealand has completely turned the tables in that department, and this has now become its main advantage.

[Mr Mwenda]

I'm actually increasingly pleased by the ethnic diversity of the england team. Plenty of work to be done mind, but the public school roots of the game are deep. It's never been as simple as the stereotype makes out, mind.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

I'm actually increasingly pleased by the ethnic diversity of the england team. Plenty of work to be done mind, but the public school roots of the game are deep. It's never been as simple as the stereotype makes out, mind.

Isn't Itoje an old Harrovian? I'm not sure the school mix is changing much, just the mix in the schools.

[Mr Mwenda]

I'm actually increasingly pleased by the ethnic diversity of the england team. Plenty of work to be done mind, but the public school roots of the game are deep. It's never been as simple as the stereotype makes out, mind.

Isn't Itoje an old Harrovian? I'm not sure the school mix is changing much, just the mix in the schools.

You're probably right there. I should've written my post differently to avoid conflating ethnic diversity with educational background.

I do get the feeling that the elite rugby schools are perhaps casting their nets a bit wider for talent to award scholarships to but that may be wrong.

[scuzzaman]

A one-off win might be achievable if the stars align of course.

Yep. There's beating the All Blacks (a one-off stars-aligned deal) and there's surviving the inevitable lashback to win a series against them (which requires something else).

One of which will inevitably one day be the complacency of a champion side who're favourites and have forgotten they can lose. The current coaching staff have done amazingly well in keeping that crap out of the players heads, imo.

As for Argentina, I don't think it is fair to hold them in contempt (even the mild contempt of thinking they don't deserve their position in the Rugby Champs) because of the weekend's result.

Nobody says that about France but look what the All Blacks did to them in the RWC ... 62 to 13, wasn't it? 57 to 22 doesn't look any worse to me.

[J Dory]

Yes, the prominence of Pacific Islanders in the Australian team is testimony to their natural aptitude for the sport, as they represent only 1% of that nation's population, and the cream of the talent will invariably be sucked off by the higher profile league code. By Pacific Islanders I mean Polynesians and Melanesians of either Pacific Island ancestry or birth, just to be clear. In the European nations, as well as Japan's, it is clear that we are talking about poaching in the vast majority of cases. In New Zealand, however we are talking about 7.5% of the population, and almost twice as many as Australia with appox. 300 K compared to 170 K.

Yes, the comment was partly tongue in cheek, but two things coincidental to New Zealand's rise to the top (having played 2nd string to SA during much of the amateur era, and increasingly struggling to maintain its dominance of Australia toward the end of that period) were the transition to professionalism and the arrival of Pacific Islanders on the scene.

Australia has undoubtedly neglected its indigenous population, and continues to do so. It may be among the worst examples in this respect, but is hardly alone. So I won't go into that. But I don't think the rugby codes can really be faulted in that regard, as both union and league have appeared to embrace players of all ethnicities - although union was traditionally the domain of the upper class schools, like in Britain and South Africa, & thereby inaccessible to the native population. The other issue is that Aborigines and Pacific Islanders are very different both physically and temperamentally; the former having more in common with the people of the Indian sub-continent than they do with Samoans & Tongans, for example. They may produce some great individual players like the Ella brothers, but when a rugby official declared (many years ago) that they ought to show the 'same fighting spirit as the Maori' he was quickly dismissed as a racist and never heard from again.

The influx of Pacific Islanders into New Zealand began in earnest in the 1960s, so that in rugby terms it reached fruition in the 1980s. Initially they gravitated more toward league, primarily because it was professional, and also in reaction to union's ongoing contacts with Apartheid South Africa. But that began to change in the shamateur era as the Springboks were removed from the equation and the inaugural World Cup heralded the dawn of a more glamorous new age for the hitherto beleagured code. & among the stars of the inaugural tournament was a Samoan - Michael Jones.

Inevitably the Pacific Islanders have had their own influence on the game in New Zealand, and the likes of Barrett, Crotty & the Smiths, et al, can be thankful for this. During the amateur era it was in the backline that the All Blacks were most often found wanting against the Springboks - and even the Wallabies at times. Traditionally New Zealand played a forward-dominated game, honed to near perfection in the wet and slushy conditions of the nation's winters. But when matched in that department, as they invariably were in South Africa, they tended to come off 2nd best. Indeed, that was evident as recently as the Cavaliers tour of 1986, when Gerber and co ran riot. But with the arrival of Pacific Islanders on the scene, New Zealand has completely turned the tables in that department, and this has now become its main advantage.

So not so tongue in cheek then, I'm basing that on the three paragraph justification and last sentence stating "has now become its main advantage".

I don't want to downplay the contribution that Maori and Pacific Island people have made to the success of the All Blacks, it's immense, but if you think that the reason the All Blacks are dominant is because we have more brown dudes, you're spectacularly missing the point. Go back to Lizards list of points. Add in that you'll find a game of touch in parks, on beaches, in the school playground at lunchtime. It's NZ's national game.

[morepork]

NZ is part of Polynesia you doghnut.

[rowan]

It was an excellent post by Lizard. But rugby has always been New Zealand's national game, yet South Africa held the edge throughout the amateur era. Oh, the Kiwis are quick to blame the refereeing, altitude and the non-eligibility of Maori players for tours to the republic during much of that era, but how about the five grandslams the Boks had achieved before the All Blacks managed their first? How about the fact SA had won a series in New Zealand (37) as well? That South Africa's advantage was generally in the backs is hardly surprising, given the warmer climate and firmer grounds. Australia, also, was beginning to gain an edge on NZ in that department in the 1980s. That's why the changing demographics were such a Godsend to New Zealand, and very timely as well, coinciding with the advent of the World Cup and professionalism. Game-breakers like Inga, Cullen, Jonah & Vindiri not only helped the ABs turn the tables on the Wallabies & SA (once the Boks came out of isolation), they revolutionized the game in New Zealand - which henceforth became more expansive. Perhaps another fortunate coincidence was the sudden rise to prominence of the Hong Kong 7s toward the end of the amateur era. That's where a large number of New Zealand's future Polynesian backline stars first made their mark.

[morepork]

I'm guessing you didn't follow much domestic rugby league Rowan.

[rowan]

In New Zealand? Did anybody?

[morepork]

In New Zealand? Did anybody?

I grew up playing it in Auckland in the '80s. Not all sports were Lilly White chief....

[rowan]

I didn't say they were. But given Pacific Island immigration to New Zealand only began in earnest in the latter half of the 20th century, especially the 1960s, it's unlikely there were many NZ-born Pacific Islanders in any New Zealand sport at senior level prior to the 1980s. I believe Olsen Filipaina (who I recall, btw) was one of th first and has even been described as the 'trailblazer' for players of Pacific Island origin in the XIII man game (this occurring in the 80s). By the end of that decade the Kiwis were Polynesian-dominated, as I recall - no doubt due in part to the reasons I've already mentioned in an earlier post. I sense you are reading too much into my comments and seeing things which are not actually there.

NB: I'm also aware All Blacks legend Bryan Williams came to prominence on the 1970 tour of SA.

[morepork]

James Leuluai, Darryl Williams, the Sorrenson brothers, all the Tuimavaves, Don and Duane Mann, Fred Ah Kuoi, etc etc etc.

Olsen is a legend because he got the better of Wally Lewis in the '85 series and he was the all time test point top dog up until about 1990. His trailblazing was done in Australia in the NRL where he experienced racism like he had never seen back home, and was a role model for young Polynesian boys playing the game (of which there were lots).

[rowan]

Yes, I remember all that, including the Filipaina-Lewis showdown. I think a few of the guys you mentioned there played for NZ Maori, didn't they? Mixed-race, I suppose, as Auckland had already become a bit of a melting pot by that stage.

Still not sure where you're going with this, however. It appears to support, not refute, what I wrote about the changing demographics at that time. The effects no doubt kicked in a little earlier in Auckland, of course.

[morepork]

Bored now.

[rowan]

Of course, there are many other factors to consider here, especially from the South African perspective. They were unbeaten in a series during the entire first half of the 20th century when all factors were working in their favor, but they suffered increasingly through isolation at the end of the amateur era, and since the end of Apartheid the XV man code has no longer been regarded as the national sport and appears to have lost government backing to some extent. On the other hand, they have begun to tap into their substantial non-white population, belatedly, so it'll be interesting to see where that takes them in the decades to come.

[Lizard]

I agree that for most of the amateur era the Springboks had the edge over the All Blacks. I'm not sure that it is fair to use the number of grand slams as a comparison to back that point up. Have a look at how many attempts each country had. My recollection is that New Zealand had very few compared to South Africa and Australia.

[Lizard]

Australia of course have the unique distinction of the Mals Dnarg, by losing against every Home Nation in one tour.

[cashead]

I agree that for most of the amateur era the Springboks had the edge over the All Blacks. I'm not sure that it is fair to use the number of grand slams as a comparison to back that point up. Have a look at how many attempts each country had. My recollection is that New Zealand had very few compared to South Africa and Australia.

Same number as the Boks, actually. However, the All Blacks had more Grand Slams thwarted by a draw with no losses with no losses than the Boks did (2 to 1). Not sure how many tours the Springboks were forced to give up on due to various factors like the All Blacks did a few times.
Since professionalism, the Boks and All Blacks have attempted it three times, and the Wallabies twice with one later this year.
The All Blacks are 3 from 3 (2005, 2008, 2010).
The Springboks are 0 from 3 (1998 - beaten by England, 2004 - beaten by England and Ireland, 2010 - beaten by Scotland).
The Wallabies are 0 from 2 attempted so far (2009 - held to a draw by Ireland, beaten by Scotland, 2013 - beaten by England). If they play like they have so far this year, they're in no danger of succeeding.