Four More Years?!

I only have a few words to say about the rugby. No piss take either because I know some of my dearest mates – Bruiser, Rosie, Dog, Trace, Simmo, Matty – will all be feeling it a lot more than I. Those boys live and breathe their rugby and I know they’ll be taking it pretty tough. Not to mention the father-in-law who I suspect probably left the room when he knew the writing was on the wall and would have missed the final 20 minutes of the game anyway.

I don’t have any answers to the many questions that they are bound to be asking of themselves, only an epiphany to share that dawned on me about the same time four years ago. I don’t think I’ve watched a full game of rugby since (other than the Petone Senior Thirds).

Professionalism has been the great equaliser in terms of world rugby. Bigger countries with a bigger pool of players to pick from and bigger wallets to pay them with are better prepared and better coached than they ever were. They know it and we’re trying hard to ignore it.

Since the year dot, The All Blacks have been the dominant force in world rugby. It was our game dammit, we even taught the clowns who came up with the concept how to play it properly. But them days are gone and the rest of the rugby playing world, although envious of our past, are no longer intimidated by it. The professional rugby world owes New Zealand nothing. Reputation counts for nothing these days, it only helps ticket sales.

We’ve won everything rugby has to offer for so long. Even between World Cup tournaments we still win it all, but I believe we’ve forgotten how to desire a win. We want to win, but it’s not the same thing. When France, England or South Africa walks onto the pitch to face the ABs they know that for the next 80 minutes, they are equal to the other fifteen jokers standing in black. These other sides are not constrained by a legacy of expectation that smothers them. Any thing can happen on the day and as the Frogs proved today; it comes down to who wants it the most. Old Frenchie desired the win over an opposition that no one said they could beat. England showed the same desire to beat an opponent they were not suppose to beat either.

Desire. That one simple, primal denominator that occurs in everything competitive.

I don’t doubt the commitment of the players, well of some I do actually. Contemplate this: When you had in your notice at work, do you do your best work in the last two weeks of your job? Or are you counting the days? So how does that compare to someone who has already indicated that they will no longer stay and play in or for New Zealand after the World Cup?

As for the other players, I think we have to be honest with ourselves. They’re as Kiwi as we are and they grew up with same mindset we all have, that the All Blacks deserve to win everything because that’s the way it’s always been. All Black management might well shield the players from the media hype in a tournament like this, but they’re still in regular contact with loved ones back home who undoubtedly maintain the same pre conceived notions of how the tournament will pan out. They’re Kiwi after all and that’s what we do.

We think so highly of these guys because they are highly paid, highly trained athletes, but they are human after all. They are the product of a country that no longer knows how to fight to win something for the first time, not in a rugby sense anyway and we are slipping into infamy because of it. We are as a nation producing these men and we are as a nation are supporting them by remaining ignorant to the fact that New Zealand no longer dominates World Rugby. The playing field, as they say, is a level one. I think the day we collectively realise it is the day we might stand a chance of getting our desire to win back.

Like the couple who bought tickets for the semi and final because they assumed the ABs would be playing both games. Like the sports guy on the news last night, the authority on nothing, proclaiming an easy win. Like every washed up expert I saw or read this week – themselves failures on the World Cup front – who all predicted an easy win to the ABs. It was a nobrainer, they said. Certainly was alright. And here we are again, four more years.

The England football team has only won the football World Cup once, in 1966. They have never looked like winning it again. The All Blacks will have to wait four more years to prove they aren’t about to do the same.