Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith
Conrad Smith has spoken highly of his midfield partnership with Ma’a Nonu after the pair equalled the world record for caps as a midfield combination in New Zealand’s 14-10 win over South Africa earlier this month.
Sadly, the broken arm suffered by Nonu during the first half in Wellington means they will have a long wait before getting the opportunity to improve on the 55-Test landmark shared with Irish centres, Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy.
IRB.com
Nonu is out for the remainder of 2014 and will miss New Zealand’s remaining Rugby Championship matches against Argentina in La Plata this Saturday and South Africa in Johannesburg on 5 October as well as their November tour to the United States and Britain.
The two 32-year-olds first combined for Wellington in 2003 and a year later were also Hurricanes Super Rugby teammates, by which time they were both on the All Blacks’ radar.
However it wasn’t until 2008 – against Ireland, on a freezing night in Wellington – that the most enduring of All Blacks’ partnerships first came together in a Test match.
“Myself and Ma’a, we’ve played a lot of rugby together right from early days when we were in Wellington…we were sort of both competing for the same position when we started and then he got thrown out on the wing which I don’t think he enjoyed,” says Smith.
“I don’t think it was until 2008 that we started playing together, as a sort of established 12/13, and since then we’ve obviously had a bit of success. We’re two individual players but very much a combination.”
Being an All Black has always come with a heavy workload and a degree of self-sacrifice, but Smith – one of three players sharing the same surname in the current New Zealand squad – says the demands on the modern-day player have increased since the Rugby World Cup was won in 2011.
Rather than rest on their laurels, the All Blacks continue to keep pushing back the boundaries. Smith, capped 80 times, wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The one thing that I’m impressed with is the amount of work that goes in behind-the-scenes, and to be honest it’s more in the last two to three years,” he says.
“Your working week now…I don’t know if it’s a 40-hour week, but it’s certainly close to that. Some of us, who were playing back when I first started, joke that (in the old days) you could play a couple of rounds of golf during the week, especially during Super Rugby!
“The amount of detail that now goes into a game – not just the analysis stuff, but the preparation for every part of the game – has stepped up enormously.
“It doesn’t leave an awful lot of free time but fair enough too, we are professional athletes and it will probably keep carrying on like that so I’m just glad I enjoyed it when I did at the start!”
Class of ’07 better than 2011, says Smith
Saturday’s Rugby Championship match in Argentina will inevitably lead to thoughts turning towards the Rugby World Cup clash between the two nations in less than a year’s time.
The reigning champions play the Pumas first up, at Wembley on 20 September, in what looks like their toughest assignment in Pool C.
Smith has played in two Rugby World Cups, both with contrasting outcomes and emotions, and is eyeing a third tournament appearance in England next year.
“One I look back on as a complete failure and one as a success,” he reflects.
“If I compare the two, the 2007 team in all honesty was probably a better team, a better squad of players. But we came unstuck (v France in the quarter-final) and there are a lot of reasons for that.
“By 2011, a core group of guys, myself included, had learnt the lessons we needed to learn. We knew it was just about winning rugby games and we scraped through. Everyone looks back on it as a great team, and fair enough too, but I think more than anything else it was more down to a group of guys that knew what we had to do to win Test matches.”