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Why the All Blacks aren’t currently good enough to win World Cup
By Finn Morton
New Zealand rugby fans have been singing the All Blacks’ praises after their scintillating 35-20 win over world champions South Africa last weekend. The All Blacks put on a clinic, and the home fans loved every minute of it.
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It was one of their best performances under current coach Ian Foster. But it’s impossible to forget where the All Blacks were a year ago.
Losses to Ireland, South African and Argentina rendered the All Blacks to a disastrous run of defeats. Many cast the fallen giants aside as nothing more than a pretender ahead of the World Cup.
But the All Blacks are back – or so many New Zealanders believe.
The All Blacks, who opened their Rugby Championship campaign with a dominant win over Los Pumas earlier this month, put the world on notice with a big win over the Springboks.
Right from the get-go, the All Blacks were a cut above. Will Jordan and Shannon Frizell were especially impressive during the statement victory.
But with less than two months to go until the Rugby World Cup, legendary All Black Murray Mexted has downplayed the encouraging victory.
According to Mexted, the All Blacks can’t win the sport’s ultimate prize going off their current form.
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“One step at a time in my opinion. At the moment we’re not the perfect package,” Mexted said on The Platform. “Are we good enough at the moment to win the Rugby World Cup? No, we’re not.
“But we’re definitely showing the signs of a much-improved team, and provided the team is selected pretty consistently… we can only get better.
“We’re definitely trending in the right direction.
“Mendoza was a good start, a really good start because it’s hard to play in places like that, and then we followed it up against probably the best opposition you could play against.
“We’re heading in the right direction in my view.”
Playing at Mt Smart Stadium on Saturday evening, the All Blacks laid down the challenge with a passionate haka opposite their fiercest rivals.
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Following weeks, if not months of chatter, the Test match that both rugby nations had so eagerly been waiting for was finally upon us.
But the All Blacks came to play, while the Boks were slow out of the blocks.
Tries to Will Jordan and Shannon Frizell saw the hosts take a commanding lead, and the Springboks never really recovered.
While the visitors came within eight points following a try to world-class winger Cheslin Kolbe, that’s as good as things got for them during an improved second half performance.
“One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but I will say I’m very much encouraged by what I’m seeing,” Mexted added. “In fact it’s a delight to see it. It looks like we’re on track.
“We’ve got a lot to go yet, I think we’ve got to build more rhythm yet, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction this year.
“The inconsistencies of the last two years or so are obvious for everybody, we’ve all seen them. They’ve had a restructure of their coaching lineup and I think it’s paying dividends.
“We’re seeing a more improved effort, particularly from the front row. Because that was a magnificent forward pack, the Springbok forward pack, and we had that scrum under control.
“When you look at the stats, I was thinking before the game if we don’t get 50 per cent we won’t win this game – 50 per cent possession. We actually got 63 per cent or 64 per cent of possession.
“Great success really as far as strategic play.”
Of course this team "can" win the world cup, but there's also about 6 other teams that can add well. I was disappointed by how vague this article was. I had hoped there would be reasons given. Why is this team "not good enough"? It's the scrum not strong enough to handle the big boys? Is the game plan wrong? Is there but enough belief? Do we still have important combinations to work out? Are there defensive holes? A lack of depth? Why write an article saying we can't win, but without examining WHY?
Even if they had lost the last two games, the way they're playing is like a different team to where they were this time last year. Totally new attacking structure, and clear game plans being executed with accuracy.
Nothing the ABs do now will make them favourites to beat Ireland or France, but there is not much more they could have done over the past couple of weeks. A couple of silly penalties and individual defensive blunders but compared to the systemic crisis of 12 months ago we couldn't be playing any better.
As a Saffa, I thought NZ played exceptionally well in the first half. They do play in patches though. In both test matches in the RC NZ faded in the 2nd half. They did finish well against the Boks though. Write NZ off in any RWC at your own peril. They are a favourite and so is the Boks. NZ won't fear Ireland but France always seem to handle the AB'S. Boks won't fear either of the two. NZ vs Boks in WC final.
That's just my take.
......maybe 'showed their cards too soon' ....... the Boks will learn much from that game......watch this space.....
I hate articles like this. The ABs can beat anyone on any day. And they certainly won’t be complacent. What’s the point looking at where they were a year ago?
Let’s look ahead and see how they do against the wallabies. From what I can tell, this AB team is on the right track to take on Ireland and France!
Even at their worst moment last year they were capable of winning it, France lost to Tonga in 2011 and only lost by 1 point in the World Cup final a few weeks later.
Of course there are mountains to climb, Ireland and France are so strong, but 'always bet on black'
Misleading headline. They are in the hunt but no-one in NZ is getting carried away that I know
I don’t know where the author of this article is domiciled, but I can tell you as a Kiwi living in NZ we are very pleased with the results so far this year, but are under absolutely no illusions as to the task ahead. In particular, Ireland and France have beaten us soundly in the last two years and we know there is a lot of improvement still needed to reach their level. So - no complacency here as far as I can see!