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The All Blacks Are Doing To Other Teams What France Did To Them In 1999
By Jamie Wall
Their record winning streak was built on intense 20-minute scoring blitzes, something the All Blacks were on the receiving end of in one of their most famous losses, writes Jamie Wall.
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The last Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park looked, for a while at least, like the closest the All Blacks were going to be pushed so far in 2016. In fact, were it not for a dubious no try call from the TMO, the result may well have been quite different.
Had Henry Speight’s try been allowed to stand the scores would have been tied at 15-15 with the kick to come. Instead when Nigel Owens blew his whistle for full time 20 minutes later, the final score had blown out to 37-10 to the All Blacks.
The Wallabies are in good company when it comes to this phenomenon in 2016. Wales were up 18-15 at halftime at Eden Park in the first test in June. In Hamilton, Los Pumas found themselves trailing by only 24-19 well into the second half. At Kings Park in Durban the Springboks would have been feeling quietly confident when they were down just 22-15.
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The final scores were 39-21 over the Welsh, 54-22 over Los Pumas, and, in a performance being talked about as their finest ever, the All Blacks beat the Springboks 57-15.
All it took was a brief but brutal onslaught for the All Blacks to take any shred of respectability out of the scoreline. Wales found out when they conceded 24 points in 15 minutes. The Argentines tried in vain to stem five tries in just over 20 minutes. The Springboks watched their chance of beating the All Blacks evaporate as the visitors ran in six tries in 25 minutes.
Scoring a bunch of points quickly and then closing the game out isn’t exactly a revolutionary gameplan – it’s probably the basis of most coaches’ pre-game speeches all over the world. But the All Blacks should have special reason to be the masters of completely blitzing opponents out of nowhere: they were the most famous victims of it back in 1999.
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France’s fabled second half blitz in the World Cup semifinal at Twickenham remains a very sore point in All Black history. Described as 20 minutes that sunk the hopes of an entire nation and cost the job of then-coach John Hart, the reality is it was only around five (Dominici’s and then Dourthe’s tries straight after one another is what killed the All Blacks; Bernat-Salles’ one 10 minutes later was completely against the run of play). Despite having almost complete domination of territory and possession in the match, the All Blacks came up well short.
It might be drawing a long bow to put the All Blacks game plan of 2016 solely down to this experience 17 years ago, but it’s a nice bit of symmetry to think that some of their winning ways came from a lesson learned in their most famous loss.
