Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Don't count on this being a distraction for the All Blacks

(Photo by Getty Images)

Fresh off a week of often bewildering political debate, the Daily Mail Australia have poured fuel on the fire that is current Trans-Tasman relations. They’ve released the contents of All Black halfback Aaron Smith’s messages to the woman he was caught with in his infamous toilet sexcapade last year, in an obviously planned attempt to throw a bit more intrigue into Saturday night’s first Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney.

ADVERTISEMENT

That’s right, last year. All that time has gone past before these new details have come to the surface – highlighting both the lengths Smith wanted to go to to cover the story up, as well as his shockingly poor command of spelling and grammar.

For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, which happened at Christchurch airport before the All Blacks flew out to Argentina in 2016, here’s the sordid and often hilarious details.

However, if the Wallabies are thinking that it will prove to be any sort of distraction to the All Blacks, history suggests otherwise.

Smith’s trip to the toilet came the day after a comfortable win over the Springboks at AMI Stadium. The halfback had a massive game, heavily involved in the All Blacks’ first four tries.

The next week passed without incident, and the team again recorded a big win over Los Pumas in Buenos Aires. Smith was legitimately rested for that game, however TJ Perenara had a strong showing in his place.

The story broke upon the All Blacks’ arrival in Durban the following Monday. They were greeted by a media pack intent on getting the most out of the salacious breach of protocol, and Smith was duly sent home to enact the whole tearful apology procedure that’s standard with these sort of things these days.

ADVERTISEMENT

If the Springboks thought that Smith’s rapid fall from grace was going to slow the All Blacks down, they got a rude awakening around 20 minutes into the subsequent test match. Perenara seized his opportunity with both hands and had a blinder, scoring two tries (although one was very dodgy) to help his team to a record 57-15 win. There were more than a few jokes the next week that Smith should be welcome to frequent as many toilets as he wants if that’s the way the team would play afterwards.

But the double down of the Smith saga isn’t even the only All Black-related distraction going on in Sydney this week. The court case of the alleged hotel room bugging is taking place right now, although the laborious machinations of the justice system – rather than any nefarious timing – that’s meant it’s come around a year later.

It’s unlikely that the All Black camp are in the slightest bit interested in the goings on in that trial, but it is another off-field drama that can be added to the list that includes the sending home of Keith Murdoch in 1972, Kit Fawcett letting slip that he wanted to get laid as often as possible in 1976 and the massive civil disruption and rioting caused by the 1981 Springboks coming to New Zealand.

In fact, it’s fair to say there’s only one well known distraction that’s proven to have worked on the All Blacks, and it hasn’t even been 100% confirmed to be true: when a mysterious waitress called Suzie served the team lunch before a pretty important game in 1995.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

T
Tom 7 hours ago
Will Bristol's daredevil 'Bears-ball' deliver the trophy they crave?

Also a Bristol fan and echo your sentiments.


I love watching Bristol but their approach will only get them so far I think. Exeter played like this when they first got promoted to the prem and had intermittent success, it wasn't until they wised up and played a more balanced game that they became a consistently top side.


I really want Bristol to continue playing this brand of rugby and I don't mind them running it from under their posts but I don't think they need to do it every single time. They need to be just a little bit more selective about when and where on the pitch they play. Every game they put themselves under so much needless pressure by turning the ball over under their posts trying to do kamikaze moves when it's not required. By all means run it from your goal line if there is a chance for a counter attack, we all want to see Bristol running in 100m tries from under their posts but I think until they learn when to do it and when to be pragmatic, they are unlikely to win the premiership.


Defense has been a real positive from Bristol, they've shown a lot of improvement there... And I will say that I think this kamikaze strategy they employ is a very good one for a struggling side and could be employed by Newcastle. It's seems to have turned around Gloucester's fortunes. The big advantage is even if you don't have the biggest and best players, what you have is cohesion. This is why Scotland keep battering England. England have better individuals but they look muddled as a team, trying to play a mixed strategy under coaches who lack charisma, the team has no identity. Scotland come out and give it full throttle from 1-15 even if they struggle against the top sides, sides like England and Wales who lack that identity drown under the relentless will and synergy of the Scots. If Newcastle did the same they could really surprise some people, I know the weather is bad up there but it hasn't bothered the Scots. Bristol can learn from Scotland too, Pat is on to something when he says the following but Scotland don't play test matches like headless chickens. They still play with the same level of clarity and ambition Bristol do but they are much better at picking their moments. They needed to go back to this mad game to get their cohesion back after a couple of seasons struggling but I hope they get a bit wiser from matches like Leinster and La Rochelle.


“If there’s clarity on what you’re trying to do as a team you can win anything.”

2 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Stuart Lancaster takes giant stride towards immediate Racing 92 exit Stuart Lancaster takes giant stride towards immediate Racing 92 exit
Search