ABs chokers?

[gunnamatta bay]

Will the weight of expectation on the ABs be too much?




http://www.stuff.co.nz/4067534a1823.html


All Blacks handed chokers tag
NZPA | Tuesday, 22 May 2007
The psychological battle for Rugby's World Cup has begun early with the All Blacks already being labelled "chokers" in the British press.
In a seemingly-unprompted column for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, respected writer Mick Cleary has theorised that the World Cup in France is far from a one-horse race.
In the article headlined "Where the All Blacks will go wrong", Cleary acknowledged the All Blacks' outstanding record over the past two years, having won 19 of their last 20 tests.
Every other major contender has been "smashed" at some point since the 2003 tournament, he noted.
But Cleary honed in on New Zealand's poor return from previous World Cups as reason for other nations to have heart.
"Is the 2007 Rugby World Cup a foregone conclusion? Do New Zealand only have to turn up to win it? I'm delighted to report that the answer on both counts is 'no'," he wrote.
"They have the best-balanced, most experienced coaching team in the competition... they're also brimful of individual talent.
"Form, coaches, players - damn. Where's the fault line? In their heads, that's where.
"The All Blacks want to win this Rugby World Cup too much."
In a theme likely to repeated by other commentators in the lead-up to the tournament, Cleary asks whether the New Zealand players will be able to handle the pressure of the big occasion.
The All Blacks have fallen short since the 1987 inaugural event - "a shabby return" in Clearly's eyes - and the weight of expectation will become unbearable on the players now entrusted with ending a 20-year drought.
"Every team wants to win, of course. New Zealand have to win. That's the difference," he wrote.
"The tension gets to them.
"So, pick a side from these three - South Africa, Australia or France.
"Perhaps even Ireland as outsiders. Any one of them could win the World Cup.
"Or, let's put it another way, could New Zealand somehow lose the World Cup? You see, once you phrase it in those terms, anything really is possible."

 

[SpaceMonkey]

lol now here's an idea, how about british rugby journalists actually write something new or interesting instead of rehashing the same old cliches?

 

[ozbash]

The psychological battle for Rugby's World Cup has begun early with the All Blacks already being labelled "chokers" in the British press.

thanks poms.

 

[Twizzle]

I can hear the ABs starting to cough already

 

[gunnamatta bay]

Sean Fitzpatrick returns serve:


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=10441286


Rugby: England too fat to win World Cup, says Fitzy
Former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick has mocked England's World Cup rugby chances, saying their players are too fat.
"You won't win anything with a bunch of fatties," the Sun newspaper in London reported.
Fitzpatrick, capped 92 times for New Zealand, said England coach Brian Ashton needed to get his team into shape quickly.
"Ashton has got a game plan that will suit England," he said.
"But the players need to start putting in the work.
"It's great playing an expansive game but you can't afford to have any fatties there.
"Look at the All Blacks, they actually look like athletes."
England needed to stop talking about being world champion and start acting like it to have any hope of defending its crown in September, he said.
"Maybe in England they've enjoyed talking about being world champions for too long and have been going backwards in the process."
World rugby needed England to be strong, he said.
"They've got the biggest player base in the world and they need to go back to basics.
"A lot of it is down to the players and a few guys have really let themselves down".
- NZPA

 

[shiznit]

fair enough though.... untill we win the damn thing again were gonna have that tag hanging over the boys.

as history has showed were no certainty to win it... but we have a very good chance this year. heres hoping the boys can finally bring 'bill' home.

 

[Sanchez]

we dont choke, we just happen to lose

 

[SpaceMonkey]

we dont choke, we just happen to lose

Define choking? It's not like we've been favourites at every WC, and getting knocked out by a home side in front of a packed stadium of rabid fans (al la 95 or 03) is hardly unforgivable.

 

[gunnamatta bay]

Define choking? It's not like we've been favourites at every WC, and getting knocked out by a home side in front of a packed stadium of rabid fans (al la 95 or 03) is hardly unforgivable.

Not according to the NZ media and public but spacey. I get the impression when browsing the nz online papers that this is almost a holy crusade.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Not according to the NZ media and public but spacey. I get the impression when browsing the nz online papers that this is almost a holy crusade.

The NZ media (and to a large extent the public) have unrealistic expectations- at the end of the day the ABs are only a football team, albeit a very good one. They don't have some god given right to win every game they play any more than any other team does.

 

[gunnamatta bay]

The NZ media (and to a large extent the public) have unrealistic expectations- at the end of the day the ABs are only a football team, albeit a very good one. They don't have some god given right to win every game they play any more than any other team does.

I'm not sure their expectations are unrealistic though spacey. Henry and co rested their best players from the super 14. Many are saying this meant sacrificing the title to the SAs but the sacrifice will be worth it when they bring home the world cup. There seems to be no room for any other result. No other rugby playing nation puts so much pressure on their team. If they were South Americans you just would not return home if you failed because the passionate 'fans' would more than likely kill you and your families.

 

[kia ora storm]

Rugby is a religion in NZ...if they lose this one then the nation will go into mourning big time !!!.

 

[Blaze]

they will win it eventually. if they don't win it this year, they will def win the 2011 tournament.

No one can beat the All Blacks at home.

the whole 'country going into mourning' thing is overhyped. I didn't go into mourning after the last world cup, and noone I know did either. Maybe you get that impression if you listen to radio sport all day...

The only sports event that has ever kept me up wide awake afterwards was that Tri Nations game in melbourne last year. Not the final, the game where we got run down at the end. Horrible.

 

[gunnamatta bay]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4074697a2201.html


Lack of inner confidence could prove a cup killer for All Blacks
Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 27 May 2007
By PHIL GIFFORD
Mick Cleary, one of the less hysterical British rugby writers, makes a good point when he suggests a lack of inner confidence could stop the All Blacks winning the 2007 world cup in France.
Certainly the All Blacks have a crap record in the last four tournaments, making the final only once, which would suggest a lack of mental steel.
But where Cleary and many others go off course is in the suggestion that on form the All Blacks should have won the cup in 1991, 1999, and 2003, rather than limping out in a semifinal. Only in 2003 did form truly indicate a final spot.
How good were the All Blacks before the '91 cup?
Average, and with good reason. By the end of 1990 the internal dirty war between coach Alex "Grizz" Wyllie and selector John Hart was poisonous.
Hart waged a behind-the-scenes campaign against Wyllie with the help of a largely compliant media. But then, instead of Wyllie being sacked, and Hart taking over, NZRU chairman Eddie Tonks, in what is certainly a grand final contender for worst rugby administrative decision of all-time, appointed Hart and Wyllie co-coaches.
Two men who couldn't stand each other had to grin and pretend to be working together. In the words of Brian Lochore, "They took the two of them (Hart and Wyllie) out with one shot."
In the last two games before the world cup, the All Blacks lost 12-21 in Sydney to the Wallabies, and then scraped to a 6-3 win at Eden Park.
So the semifinal loss to Australia in Dublin at the 1991 world cup was not so much a boilover, more both sides running to form.
In 1995 the All Blacks were 15 to 20 points better than any team in the competition, and still good enough, with two-thirds of the side struggling with the after effects of food poisoning, to take the Springboks into extra time in the final. Not too much mental weakness there.
The All Blacks went to the 1999 cup on the back of victory in the Tri Nations, but that was deeply deceptive.
Cracks in the team that were apparent in 1998, when the All Blacks stumbled to a record five successive test losses, seemed to have been smoothed over, until the last game in Tri Nations in Sydney against Australia.
I remember sitting among other stunned, mostly silent, New Zealand journalists after we'd watched the most pathetic, gutless performance by an All Blacks test side.
Our forwards that night were treated with contempt by the Wallabies, who had shown infinitely more technique, passion, and commitment than the All Blacks.
The next day in the duty free shop at Sydney airport I almost literally bumped into Taine Randell, the All Blacks captain.
The poor guy still looked as if he'd just seen his own ghost. So when the All Blacks capitulated against France in the semifinal at Twickenham, it shouldn't have been a surprise to Kiwis.
The hollow core of that team had already been exposed, and, after the debacle in Sydney, they should never have been considered real challengers.
Four years later in Australia came what I'd consider to be the only time the All Blacks have lost after what really should have been winning form, or at least form good enough to get them into the final.
Looking over the previous 12 months the only side that should have spooked the All Blacks was England. The 15-13 English victory early in 2003 in Wellington was a warning that as boring as the footy was, it was a way to win.
With hindsight, the decisions to not play Tana Umaga and to discard Andrew Mehrtens were body blows when we faced the Wallabies in the semifinal, and it may well have been that by 2003 the legacy of not winning the cup had started to weigh heavily on the players' minds.
So in finding true mental composure, the Tri Nations in 2007 will provide the four most vital games of rugby this current team will play before the sharp end of the world cup.
If the All Blacks show good form in the Tri Nations they deserve to be favourites, and, as in '87 and '95, will feel and, I believe, play like favourites.
And with the best coaching and selection group since '87 on board, there's no good reason to feel we'll have to face the bleak alternative scenario.
• Phil Gifford's rugby show Front Row is on Radio Sport from 8 to 10am on Saturdays.

 

[ozbash]

If the All Blacks show good form in the Tri Nations they deserve to be favourites, and, as in '87 and '95, will feel and, I believe, play like favourites.
And with the best coaching and selection group since '87 on board, there's no good reason to feel we'll have to face the bleak alternative scenario.

thats pretty much the guts of it. smart man that loosehead...
the AB,s will be praying that everyone is writing them off. suits graham henry down to the ground.

I really think they have done wonders in their preparations, henry and co wouldnt give a rats about S14 and it would be in the squads best intrest to have a non nz team win it.

First international this coming weekend, watch them go, and they wont stop until Ritchie McCaw is holding the Webb Ellis trophy aloft.