The All Blacks

24th June 2005

FLOODGATES?

Today we talk exclusively about the rugby, the All Black's, the Lions and the current tour with rugby philosopher and historian - Byron Churchill and raconteur Little Ross Hollands.

The Jimi Page: Sport without guilt members will be aware that we have long talked about a game of rugby where, our superior skill level and speed around the park is allied with complete commitment and teamwork resulting in a brand of sublime rugby that could seem almost the stuff of fiction. We call that game "Floodgates" because of the resulting score and I think it is worth asking, considering the performances in the first test of the series, will we see "floodgates" this weekend?
BC: The All Blacks have shown in Saturdays game and against France last year that we may have a side that will at last live up to the Great All Black Potential and take an opposion team completely apart.
LRH: That could prove difficult against the current Lions team because they are apart already.
BC:True
LRH: We can only hope that during the week they can do enough to patch the team back together so that we can dismantle them on the weekend again.

The Jimi Page: The All Blacks are said to be "Innovators"
because of the way we can produce milestone sides which seem to redefine the way the game is played. Will these All Black's then "get it on" and possibly be "innovators" as well, and take rugby to another level?
BC:I dont think the term is strictly correct because if you look at the history of the game, the style the classic sides come up with is remarkably similar. It is more like we return to the same theme and just execute it better. This will invariably involve an increase in skill level and athleticism resulting in a faster game pace and more complete involvement in the game right across the park.
Unbelievably - this philosophy originates with one of the original All black teams, one of the most famous of them all - the 1905 "invincibles". Their failure to kick the ball away and the ability for all of the players to run and score tries led one journalist to call them "All Backs". Hence the name.
LRH: The Invincibles?
BC: no. All Blacks!
LRH: No all blacks in the invincibles that can't be right..
BC: idiot!!
LRH: (Standing up) Mr Idiot to you !








went over there and fucked them up

The Jimi Page: All right calm down please..
LRH: As Fred Allen has said - "rugby is a very simple game". We need to GO OVER THERE AND @@#$%!!(FUCK) THEM UP
BC: Ok. Over the years "the innovators" sides invariably played rugby of this style.
From the World War Two Army team, through Fred Allen coached sides to, more recently, the World Cup winning 1987 team and the great All Black team of 1995-97 all demonstrated to varying degrees this style of "innovation".

The Jimi Page: I often compare us to the Brazilian soccer team and in some ways to ajax. what do you think?
LRH: (laughs) I prefer the new orange spray on cleanser.
BC: I presume you are relating here to the total football style used a by the great dutch soccer team from the 70's Ajax. The comparison is valid one because 2005 All Blacks take the 15 man "total football" theme along it's logical evolution because now as well as having forwards running like backs..
LRH: take a bow Kevin Mealamu..
BC: ..you also see backs like Umaga playing as forwards and cleaning out at ruck time.
LRH: hence the ajax.
BC: Tana's "cleaning" job on Brian O'Driscoll would not have probably happened, even a few years ago.
LRH: the british wish it still hadn't happened....
Anyway..Why 15 man football? Why dont we play 10 man footy and have four players left over at the end?
BC: I dont think the New Zealand public would tolerate it
The Jimi Page: Which brings us to the Brazilian soccer parallel.
LRH: Please explain.... in words of one syllable..
The Jimi Page: They.. like us have a surfeit of riches in terms of players with skill. The people they leave out of their soccer team are as astonishing as the people they have in it and the team are not only expected to win they are expected to win with style and a certain panache playing what they call "Bonito Jogo”" or the beautiful game.
LRH:(Hollands lets out a loud fart and laughs)wicked!..
BC: cant smell a thing..
The Jimi Page: nothing..
LRH: bugger..
BC: Famously the Brazilian soccer team that WON the world cup in 1994 were slated at home for the boring style which they played.
New Zealanders, of course, are not THAT obsessed with style over content. We still enjoy old fashioned tight arm-wrestle forward battles and if we were in a world cup final and ground out an ugly win, who would care?
The Jimi Page: But, at the same time, if the All Blacks were to adopted a "ten man rugby, "we-need-to-slow-the-game-down" approach there would eventually be outrage,
BC: yes.. exactly..on talkback radio at least....
LRH: At SWG we would burn our chops at half-time in disgust...
The Jimi Page: getting back to the "floodgates" thing.. I think we almost achieved it in 1996 at athletic park.
BC: against a very good australian side..
The Jimi Page: yes. in attrocious conditions we won 43-6..
LRH: fuck. that was a beauty.
BC: a very, very good game.
LRH: no,no. i just did another fart...
The Jimi Page: This brings me to the current Lions team. Worshipping at the altar of Sir Clive Woodward this team inevitably follows the pedestrian and dull style his english team has adopted as it's own. Our friend welsh writer Steve Jones has made something of career out of lambasting Southern Hemisphere play. Where he writes articles such as "Super 12 hype versus Heineken Cup power" is he in some ways correct about our game?
BC: no. it's a complete falsehood and fabrication.
LRH: and it's wrong as well.
The Jimi Page: My perfect game would involve intelligent rapid play, invention, and many and varied tries...
LRH: In my game we JUST GO OVER THERE AND @#%$! (FUCK) THEM UP.
The Jimi Page: What do you imagine Stephen jones's perfect game would be like?
BC: I imagine his perfect footy game would be one where, extending the english desire to reduce the pace of the game down, the game slows down so much it actually stops. Presumably in a pile in the middle of the field with a large homoerotic ruck of "real men"...
The Jimi Page: Do you think he's gay?
LRH: no-one would be happy with the way the lions are playing.
The Jimi Page: homosexual?
BC: thanks. I'm trying to give them up..