Gregor Paul: The damning proof of the sad decline of the All Blacks

OPINION:

These are unprecedented times for world rugby. No one remembers the margins between the top teams being so tight – a time when the world rankings jumped dramatically week by week.

What we
now have eight teams fielded in a battle for world supremacy and the fourth-ranked All Blacks are roughly where they should be based on their last eight performances.

It’s a new place for them to hang out after sitting at No. 1 between late 2009 and early 2019.

But as unfamiliar as it sounds, it’s the new reality of a global game that has seen the northern hemisphere come to life in recent years and South Africa continue to produce an unsightly but highly effective game plan. .

This big overhaul of the world order has been built on a consistent theme – England, Ireland, France, South Africa, Wales and Scotland have all laid the groundwork for their deals on set piece accuracy and collision warfare.

Collectively, it was as if all the nations of the North considered that the basis of their game had long been their size and destructive power and that any reconstruction of their rugby strategy should retain this as the basis of their plan.

They’ve all raised the stakes on that front, spending the past three years building collision athletes and power plays. They’ve developed props that can peer and run, locks that can jump and bump and drop forwards that smash and dash – something South Africans have never wavered from.

It changed the nature of test football, for the better. The Northern teams have found who they really are and have stayed true to their DNA.

But on this platform of smash, bash and crunch, they added a touch of invention. Ireland and France in particular have understood that a set piece and burst of breakdown are the gateway to the lighter touch, passing and catching complex attacking stratagems they devise if smartly.

And that is why the All Blacks now find themselves at a time when, 18 months from the World Cup, they must find a way to rise out of the pack to take the lead.

It’s a course that will only be possible if they manage to regain a level of consistency that they have been lacking since the last World Cup. The All Blacks are not left behind per se; they just don’t set the pace because what they deliver one week may look totally different – not in a good way – the next.

The All Blacks have had their moments over the past two years. The relentless negativity that has clung to the team since 2020 is unwarranted.

No one can doubt that the skills are there or that at times the team have put in convincing performances or at least extended periods of the kind of rugby that other nations cannot match.

But the All Blacks haven’t produced enough of those performances either and while it’s undeniable that Ireland have improved since November, the same cannot be said for the All Blacks.

They don’t seem to have fully accepted yet that they brought carnage to the testing arena all the time and not every now and then.

In Dunedin they played a disastrous 20 minute opener where it looked like they felt the hard work they produced in Auckland was still in the bank, earning them interest and the right to believe they had already destroyed Ireland.

They continue to tread water, delivering a merciless effort at Eden Park before regressing at Dunedin and the stats on that are starting to paint a damning picture.

The All Blacks have played Ireland, South Africa and France six times since August last year and have won two and lost four.

They are sitting on a 33% win rate against the three teams who – due to the draw – stand between them and a fourth World Cup title next year.

Much of the track has been chewed up by this coaching staff as a result of these numbers and if the All Blacks are to take off, it must be in the next three Tests.

The circumstances of the past two years have been trying and may mitigate the results to some extent, but patience is wearing thin.

The All Blacks must not only start winning regularly, there must be a definite feeling that they have committed themselves to an effective style of rugby which enables them to compete on this new battlefield of destruction, but that they are able to replicate each time they play.

The statistics need to be transformed to offer a greater ray of hope. Even if they beat Ireland in Wellington, they will go to the World Cup with a winning record only half the time they face them.

Perhaps that could be overlooked or balanced by a more intuitive assessment if this week’s performance is both brutal and emphatic and backed by two fiercer and consistent displays in South Africa.