Deaker on sport (sport talk show here in NZ) featured interesting interviews with Robbie Deans and Graeme Henry       

as well as with some other sporting celebrities last night. In particular they talked about how the new breakdown rule

interpretations would influence the games during the WC, All Black choking, team selections and preparing players for

the WC.

Breakdown adjudication during the WC

Both Henry and Deans agreed that the rule interpretation changes made in 2010 was good for the game but that we might see the game reverting to the 2009 tactics during the WC. Kicking for field position with the aim of playing the game in the oppositions half of the field is certainly going to be high on the agenda.

Australia has problems in the line-out with senior locks being injured but Deans is hopeful that Vickerman will be ready to play. Their scrum is also not one of the strengths of the Aussie team which means that they will need to play the faster ball rotation game.

When asked whether he is going to build his team around the Reds Deans was very careful with his wording saying that the Reds success also has a lot to do with the fact that players like Genia and Cooper was introduced to international rugby last year. These players have now matured and it is showing during the S15. Cooper was found out last year during the EOYT to the extent that he was left out of the side in last test match. Gitua also didn’t have a great tour and Australia is certainly vulnerable when the defence starts to target their playmakers and prevent their loosies to dominate the collision area. Poccock in particular was targeted during the Aussie EOYT and my feeling is that if you scrum well against the Aussies and dominate the breakdowns and in so doing limit the space of Genia, Cooper and Gitua they are extremely vulnerable. Deans didn’t say anything about this during the interview but he certainly is very conscious of how suspect they will be if they built a world cup campaign around Genia and Cooper.

Henry’s response on the same question was that the Reds is much more than Cooper and Genia and that he also doesn’t think that Australia will just try and play a ball recycle pattern as the Reds doesn’t play like the Brumbies used to play.

This is interesting perspectives as both seem to be supportive of the new breakdown rule interpretations but don’t think it is going to be massively influential during the WC.

The positive view of Henry and Deans have about the new breakdown rule interpretation is therefore interesting. It is sort of a situation that they bought into the show business side of rugby as both sort of made remarks about the game not being a spectacle in 2009 but being more attractive to watch during 2010. On the other hand they both made remarks which suggest that they are not going to force the open faster game during the WC appreciating the risk that comes with such a game plan.

Interestingly enough a lot of New Zealanders are not particularly happy with how the game is evolving. Here are the views of one of the members of my website (the McLook Collection).

It is essential to the future of the game that grassroots rugby in the heartland of NZ should be preserved. New Zealand has always represented a concentrated conveyor belt of natural rugby talent coupled with visionary coaching from unpaid volunteers in rural communities, and school playgrounds.

The community’s sense of belonging has now been subordinated to a consumers need for a performed, choreographed spectacle between advertising breaks. This has fuelled the demise of the technical aspects of our game, which have been part of our education system for generations, e.g. scrummaging, rucking and contested lineouts. These have been replaced by the media driven league dogma of keeping the ball alive, and lots of tries to hold the attention of those who don’t understand the game while surfing TV channels. Without realising we have sold the rules of the game to people that don’t understand or appreciate the game. Kiwis, we have been conned by the Aussie media tycoons and we did not even know it. The Australian audience is by an large ignorant about the dark arts of the front row, or getting the ball out of a ruck quickly. Pandering to such an audience has diluted the very essence of rugby we have cherished for generations.

Rugby was always a game of territory, rather than possession, and real rugby people have never had an issue with that. Historically NZ television ratings indicated approval for the games objectives. Our next generation of players will not have been taught how to ruck, or contest lineouts and scrums. By removing these aspects from the game, the mighty All Black juggernaut has been detuned (or derailed) to the level of the cannon fodder nations which the All Blacks used to warm up against before playing the Springboks. Those sneaky Aussies have managed to level the playing field. Nothing used to squeal like a an ocker at the bottom of a ruck, so let’s get rid of that painful aspect of the game and keep the ball alive. Are you with me mate? No worries mate.

I place the blame with the idiots tinkering with the rules. Graham Mourie and Rod MacQueen!!!!

Rugby’s appeal, traditions, intrinsic qualities of contact, movement, fluidity, combat, and direct personal expression, still have the power to create communities filled with interest, passion and desire. If ever the laws of nature were embodied in a game, rugby played well is the illustration.

Rugby has played a key part in shaping the type of people New Zealanders are today. Our greatest rugby players have provided our nation with a brilliant reflection of ourselves. Rugby players that represented provinces were standard bearers.

This was achieved by an aristocracy of sporting talent that lived, worked, and played amongst us. In small communities, it was rugby that had an extraordinary capacity to focus loyalty and belonging. Today a marketing franchise or re-branding campaign cannot come close to matching this.

Choking

Deans and Henry was also asked about choking allegations made towards the All Blacks and how the plan to play in the WC.

Robbie Deans made a remark that resonated with me. He said that WC rugby is like the Ranfurly shield here in New Zealand. This is a sort of floating trophy and any team can challenge the shield holders at almost any time during the season. There is no play off or qualifying matches needed; the team last on the log can challenge the shield holders whenever they play each other during the season and you often find that the bottom team win such matches. It is a one off matches and teams motivate themselves to the extreme, lift their game and come up with innovative strategies on such occasions to win these challenges. WC semi-final matches are the same and top teams are analysed and scrutinised  by lower ranking teams which mean that it is hard for top teams to actually prepare for these matches because they don’t really know what is coming and they have the be able to adapt on the field.  This is probably the area where the All Black came apart in previous WC Campaigns namely no adapting to the ‘Ranfurly Shield situation’ they were facing.

Graeme Henry said something along the same line. “No I won’t say we choked but we made the mistake of ignoring what happened in the past; not analysing and dissecting what happened so that we could learn from it.” He continued by saying the AB made some mistakes (not saying what mistakes) in 2007 and that they’ve learned from it and one of the things they realise now is that you need to be ready for anything that gets thrown at you on the day.

Semi-finals matches are close contests and invariably the result are determine by one incident/occurrence like a forward pass a yellow card or penalty. Clearly he is talking about playing in the oppositions half, being disciplined and playing percentage rugby. Henry did throw in that you need to have the ability to pounce and run the ball if the opportunity present itself in these matches.

Team selections

High on Henry’s agenda is substitute players for Carter and McCaw and having a third scrumhalf which is incidentally one of the problems they had during 2007. He is very happy with his choices in the backline and frontrow. Getting the loose trio right and finding an adequate understudy for Carter probably his main headache at this stage.

Deans was very evasive but is clearly concerned about his frontrow and line-out options.

Preparing players for the WC

Henry in particular talked about the need of working with each individual because players are all at different stages of readiness. Some played too much and other not enough while some are recovering from injuries while others need to work on speed and strength and so forth. Asked about the implications of this for the tri-nations he said winning will be important but that player situations need to be considered and those that need game time or need to be prepared to be able to step-up in case of injury to key players need to be prepared.

Clearly very careful not to create the idea that he will be downgrading the importance of the tri-nations test matches but leaving no doubt that he would not worry if they do not perform very flash during this tournament. Players need to be ready for the WC, he said, and you can’t have them playing at the top of their game during the tri-nations if you want them firing on all cylinders during the WC.