What is Rugby?

We all know that New Zealand All Blacks have been the highest rated team in the oval planet since Wilco kicked England into the history books at the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final (well, since July 2004 to be exact).

Add to that their worldwide recognition of the Haka ritual (the subject of my next blog) to ruggers and non-ruggers alike and the All Blacks are favored by many to finally hoist the Webb Ellis Cup which has eluded them since the inception of the Rugby World Cup in 1987.

Contrary to popular belief, I think All Blacks PR machine may have gotten a little ahead of itself. These last few weeks have been very revealing for the All Blacks, despite back-to-back wins over Canada and South Africa. Let’s analyze each of these.

Canada is currently ranked 13th in the world and, after a slight drop in the world rankings in the Spring of 2006, has shown the most subtle signs of upward mobility to keep scratching at the doorstep of a top-10 ranking. Of course these details mean little when facing top-rated New Zealand on their home turf. While the final score of 64-13 was expected, the half-time result of 26-13 for the home team was embarrassing for the All Blacks and a huge victory for the visiting Canadians. The Canadians defense rebuked many well-orchestrated moves by the match favorites and visibly frustrated the All Blacks who seemed shocked by resilience of their opponents. Herein lies the rub: how can the best team in the world get frustrated by a Tier 3 team?

The very next week on June 23, New Zealand faced South Africa in what many consider to be a preview of the 2007 Rugby World Cup final. The first half of this match, as with the Canadians, was a struggle for the traveling All Blacks with South Africa enjoying much of the ball. Particularly telling was the ability of the Springboks to disrupt the All Black lineout (and thus shut down the visitors best opportunity for wide open attack and set pieces) and the bizarre kicking errors by New Zealand’s superstar fly-half Dan Carter. The half-time score was dead-locked at 6-a-piece. With just 12 minutes remaining, the Boks had gained an advantage of 21-12 and the visibly shaken All Blacks were allowing their discipline and game plan to deteriorate.

To their credit, New Zealand executed two clinical tries in the remaining minutes to snatch victory from their hosts but the cracks in their amour had already been exposed. If South Africa had a healthy squad to select from (5 back row players were injured and unavailable for the match) and hadn’t lost fly-half Butch James in the final quarter, I suspect New Zealand would be thinking hard about their status in the rugby world and maybe even hoping (as opposed to assuming) that they will be raising the Web Ellis Cup come October 20th.