NZ Rugby World October - November 2018

THE GREATEST SUCCESS STORIES, BE IT SPORT, BUSINESS OR POLITICS TEND TO HAVE A PERIOD OF ADVERSITY somewhere in the narrative. In business especially, they say it’s impossible to succeed until you have failed – at least twice. Failure, however bizarre it may seem, is so often the key to success. And if there is a concern about this current All Blacks team a year out from the 2019 World Cup, it is the lack of adversity they have known since they won the last tournament. Many of the team that won the World Cup in 2011 and 2015 had known the bitter taste of failure. Many had known what it felt like to lose on the biggest stage, to implode in front of millions of people and then endure years of hurt. It…

New Zealand Rugby is celebrating two major retention victories after both Rieko and Akira Ioane extended their contracts. Rieko has locked in on a four-year deal, while Akira has committed for another two. Both will be with the Blues and both made the decision to be there after looking around New Zealand. “It was pretty easy,” Rieko said. “I want to establish myself in New Zealand. I’m still a young fella so the black jersey is enough for me and it’s enough to keep me here. Rugby is what I love playing and to play in the best team in the world is motivating enough. Overseas didn’t come into the picture. “It gives me enough time to establish my career and enough time to evaluate after that where I’m sitting and how everything is…

The All Blacks thumped the Wallabies twice and were accused of making international rugby boring in the process. Strangely, all this winning by the All Blacks was putting people off. Not the All Blacks – but rugby in general because it was dull that one team kept winning. It seemed a bit strange because in the past when the All Blacks hadn’t won as much as they currently do, there was a lot of anger that they were losing. No one cared about the overall state of the international game when the All Blacks were losing more regularly. Then when the All Blacks did lose this year to South Africa…lo and behold everyone was happy. The global game was fixed. So All Blacks if you could please…try to lose a…

AS A PLAYER AGUSTIN PICHOT was a feisty, commanding presence on a rugby field. He captained Argentina through their outstanding 2007 World Cup campaign, and on two occasions piloted the Pumas to within seconds of a ground-breaking win over the All Blacks. After the near miss in 2006 he was not so much proud as downright angry. After his retirement he quickly became a special project for the IRB, groomed and fast-tracked into the game’s hierarchy, on the way receiving Hall of Fame status eyebrow-raisingly soon after his playing days. His rapid rise was briefly halted post 2011, when the self-interest of an Australian and a South African stymied a challenge to the games leadership by Bill Beaumont and Pichot, but when the stale reign of Frenchman Bernard Lapasset did finally end, Pichot…

THERE WERE THE ALL BLACKS cruising through the Rugby Championship-- or so it seemed in the middle of last month - and firming a touch more as favourites to take out another title at the 2019 World Cup. They’d shifted past a messy June series with France but invested in another layer of new talent in Jack Goodhue, Richie Mo’unga, Shannon Frizzell, Karl Tu’inukuafe, Liam Coltman and Jackson Hemopo and kept that winning run through twin tests with the Wallabies and the Pumas. The closest anyone got to them was the second test against France when the winning margin was 13 points. The victory sequence stretched as did the margins of 25 points then 28 and 22 in the championship as Tim Perry then Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi got their first rewards and Patrick…

There have been a handful of tests in the last few years when the All Blacks hit a rare groove and looked like they could make just about anything happen. They blitzed Ireland in 2012, beating them 60-0 after they scored four tries in the first 20 minutes that were sublime. In 2014 they tanked the Wallabies at Eden Park and then did the same to France in the quarter-final of the 2015 World Cup. That night in Cardiff, they probably would have scored 100 points if they were given just an extra 10 minutes to do it. The Springboks were run ragged in Durban 2016 and then destroyed last year in Albany. But as impressive as these performances were, they didn’t necessarily define the All Blacks. They were memorable not just for the…