All Blacks destroy Lions in 2nd Test - Clinch Series. Press Round-up.

July 3, 2005

There's still a game against Auckland this Tuesday and a concluding Third Test on Saturday, but the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand is now a foregone conclusion. This past Saturday, Sir Clive Woodward’s Lions were comprehensively outclassed by the All Blacks, and the Kiwis take an unassailable 2-0 lead into the Third Test.

Looking at the morning-after press clippings, ex-players and media in both hemispheres have lavished praise on the All Blacks and their man-of-the-match fly-half Daniel Carter. So too redeemed coach Graham Henry, whereas Lions management is getting their head handed on a plate. The softness of the Super 12 has been exposed as a myth; pundits ponder the future for England’s poster-boy Jonny Wilkinson; and what’s in store for this devastating All Blacks unit?

ALL HAIL THE ALL BLACKS

Dean Wilson , official RFU website:
"The Lions were taught a harsh lesson by the All Blacks in their 48-18 defeat in Wellington. A defeat that ends the series as a contest and drives home the message that New Zealand rugby is as strong as ever.”

Mick Cleary, the Daily Telegraph:
“New Zealand have too much class, too much pace, too much sparkle and ambition for our more prosaic players. The Kiwis have a skill-set, allied to a mindset, that is beyond our scope at present.”

Former All Black skipper Sean Fitzpatrick, The Times of London:
“This is a young side that can only get better. … The achievement of Graham Henry’s team makes me proud to be a New Zealander, and an All Black.”

Former Lion Ieuan Evans, the Sunday Telegraph:
“Let me get the eulogies out of the way. New Zealand were simply magnificent, switching the mode of play at will. One minute composed and happy to find good field position with intelligent kicking. Then bang. Dynamism that is a joy to behold, beautifully balanced and confident in their handling, running and support, knowing they had the speed, power and experience to prevail.”

James Standley, BBC:
“This New Zealand team appears to on the verge of something special. … The All Blacks produced a performance of such pace, power and skill on Saturday that few, if any sides in the world, would have been able to live with them in Wellington.

Former All Black hard-man Richard Loe, The New Zealand Herald:
“Every player in the All Blacks, backs or forwards, can run and pass and make the right decisions about what to do with the ball. British rugby does not have that. They have not moved on from the forward-dominated game they played in the 2003 World Cup. … I cannot see how they can threaten the All Blacks in the third test. Not unless the All Blacks get really, badly complacent.”

Greg Ford, Sunday Star:
“Not since that famous series win against the Springboks on South African soil have the All Blacks given us cause to celebrate such a landmark moment in our national game.”

New Zealand’s 1987 World Cup captain David Kirk, Sunday Telegraph:
“The All Blacks now have this confidence and it will be their hallmark as they go on to create a new era of dominance in world rugby.”

Ex-England international Jeremy Guscott, The Times of London:
“The All Blacks have simply given the Lions a masterclass in how to play the game. … The All Blacks remind me of the Brazilians in football. Every player in a Brazil side can kick with both feet and play in every position and, although rugby does not provide an exact parallel, the All Blacks have the same interchangeability in terms of skill, pace and power.”

Bram Humphries, Wales on Sunday:
"[The All Blacks] are a very special side, a side that has the potential to become one of the best in history and it was a privilege to be in the stadium to see them produce such mesmerising rugby.”

Gavin Mairs, The Belfast Telegraph:
"The All Blacks have mauled the Lions with a mixture of awesome forward power, a dynamic back row and raw pace and off-loading ability among the most potent backline in world rugby."

Former Scottish international Gregor Townsend, The Sunday Herald:
“Despite the winning margin for the All Blacks in yesterday’s match being higher than in the first Test, the Lions’ performance was an improvement from Christchurch, especially in terms of commitment. It just goes to show how much the weather conditions limited the scoreboard last week – if it had been as dry as Wellington, the Lions might have been on the end of a 50 or 60-point drubbing. As it was, this was the All Blacks’ highest total against the Lions.”

DAN THE MAN!!

Man-of-the-Match Dan Carter comes in for some particularly lavish praise.

Former Scottish international Gavin Hastings, Herald on Sunday:
“Carter's performance was one of the greatest fly-half performances I've seen.”

England legend Paul Ackford, Sunday Telegraph:
“Carter is now the new superstar of the global game beyond any question.”

Paul Hayward, Daily Telegraph:
“'Genius' is a word that can only properly be applied to great symphonies, the best novels or life-saving medical discoveries, but Carter's magisterial performance with hand and boot was sport's equivalent. … For what it's worth, Carter's was the greatest individual performance by a rugby player I've seen.

Mark Souster, The Times of London:
“On Saturday it was not simply that he rattled off points remorselessly, kicking nine goals out of ten and scoring two tries, while having an involvement in each of New Zealand’s other three scores. It was his speed, his ability to play heads-up rugby and what was in front of him in such an intense atmosphere, his slick hands, his fast feet, his strong defence and his ice-cold execution under pressure. There is a flamboyance allied to street cunning, a command and telepathic sense of what is going on around him.”

Iain Morrison, Scotland on Sunday:
“The match started as a contest but ended up the Daniel Carter Show. The extravagantly talented All Black fly-half helped himself to 33 points and proved, beyond any shadow of doubt, that he has inherited the crown that once sat on the head of Jonny Wilkinson.”

Michael Aylwin, The Observer:
“The genius was Daniel Carter. The question 'Have you ever seen anyone play better than that?' was asked at the post-match press conference an embarrassing number of times, sometimes by the same person of the same coach. It was as if we were still checking that it had really happened. One of the trickier philosophical questions facing the marks-out-of-10 guy - is there such a thing as the perfect performance? Should a 10 out of 10 ever be awarded? Sometimes, though, you have to cast such precious thinking aside and marvel at what one man is capable of. We've seen the kicking, we've seen the playmaking, we've seen the temperament, and yesterday we saw the power of a back-row forward as well. There seems to be nothing he can't do.”

Eddie Butler in the Observer calls Carter “the child of revolution.”:
“Carter was sublime, a blend of high-speed athleticism and ice-cool intelligence.”

WHITHER WILKO?

Robert Kitson dares to compare in the Guardian:
"If there was one image which summed up this game, if not the series, it was poor Jonny Wilkinson straining vainly to grasp at Daniel Carter's shirt-tails as his 23- year-old opposite number surged past him in the second half."

Nick Cain of The Times wonders:
“British and Irish rugby must now ask how long Wilkinson can continue to survive the physical demands of the international game.”

As does James Standley of the BBC:
“How much longer Wilkinson can go on putting his body through such trauma must be in question. It is 18 months since his operation and although the problem may have been alleviated to some extent there is undoubtedly a long-term problem that will always be with him.”

Nigel Melville, The Observer:
"I would not accuse Jonny Wilkinson of mediocrity - far from it - but look at the two fly-halves on Saturday and decide who you would choose."

THE GREAT REDEMPTION

After the Britsh Lions collapse in Australia four years ago, then-Lions coach Graham Henry was fingered for blame. Now coaching the All Blacks, Henry has had a reversal of fortune.

Ex-Rugby News publisher Bob Howitt writing in Sporting Life:
“Henry retained a stoic silence through it all, and has never spoken about it to this day. Unlike Woodward (now Sir Clive, of course) he didn't surround himself with spin doctors. All Henry has ever admitted is that it was 'a great learning experience.' I know Henry resented Woodward's lack of support back then and his conceited attitude since. I also know nothing motivated Henry more for the current series than a passionate desire to 'stick it right up Sir Clive'.”

Former England fly-half Stuart Barnes, The Times of London:
“Last night [Henry] moved the All Blacks into the stratosphere. Critics will point out the shortcomings of the Lions, but this is a special team being forged and Henry is the master craftsman. … Those with a knowledge and passion for rugby should raise a glass to Henry.”

James Lawton, The Independent:
“Henry's final sword stroke was that there were lessons to be learned for British rugby - and they could be found quite near the English border. He was saying Woodward's most conspicuous failure was one of vision. It didn't reach beyond his own border. It was a cruel remark, and a little self-serving in that it was Henry who first set in motion the Welsh revolution for so long neglected here. But then who could say that it wasn't true?”

LEAST-PREPARED LIONS EVER

On the other hand, the shine on Lions coach Sir Clive Woodward has been well & truly tarnished.

Richard Williams, The Guardian:
"There were many reasons underlying the failure of the Lions' 10th visit to New Zealand and most of them can be laid at the doorstep of the man who, less than two years ago, appeared to have taken the science of sports coaching to a new level. And in that achievement lies the seed of the most hurtful accusation of all, which is that the tour was fatally damaged when Woodward succumbed to hubris."

Tom English, Scotland on Sunday:
“I would have paid an awful lot of money to witness Woodward going into a pub in Wellington last night and telling the dejected tourists to keep their chins up. The coach would find himself at the bottom of the world's largest ruck in about three seconds flat.

“Woodward believes that he is one of the great coaches and, knowing him, I'm not at all convinced that this tour will have disabused him of that notion. You might think that the record books will torment him for the rest of time, but in Clive's world - where only himself and Lady Clive reside - the 2005 Lions have been the victims of horrendous luck and dirty play from the hosts.

“Yesterday, for example, he said that Jonny Wilkinson hitting the post with his first penalty of the match was 'a key moment.' You can't reason with a man like this.” …

“World Cup be damned, Woodward has now lost any semblance of credibility as an international coach.”

Paul Ackford, Sunday Telegraph:
“Test rugby is no kindergarten. You get away with what you can and for the second time in two weeks the Blacks handed the Lions a lesson in game manipulation. That's another theory trashed. The Lions were meant to have all the experience and experience is meant to prevail in the big games. Back to the drawing board then.

French Test-veteran Thomas Castaignède, The Guardian:
"Sometimes it's been irritating to watch Clive Woodward seeming to say, in effect, that the team that has beaten him is not necessarily better but has just scored more points on the day. It's a curious way to deal with one of the proudest rugby-playing nations in the world."

Gavin Mairs, Belfast Telegraph:
"Which can only lead to one conclusion: that the management of the tour by head coach Sir Clive Woodward has badly misfired and a great expense and now ultimately embarrassment."

Ex-international Sean Lineen, The Herald (UK):
"Sir Clive said the tour would be judged on the Test results. Well, where is the nearest noose? The 11 changes made for the second Test smacked of desperation and the realisation that he had got it totally wrong for the first Test. "

Steve Hansen doesn’t disagree:
“Sir Clive Woodward will forever be remembered as the coach with the "best prepared" side who lost the Lions series, according to New Zealand assistant coach Steve Hansen.

“And the former Wales coach, with the luxury of the three-match series already in the bag after the first two Tests, believes Woodward's biggest mistake was the decision to include Prime Minister Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell in the huge Britain and Ireland contingent.”

THE SPIN CYCLE

Tony Blair’s former propagandist and Lion’s media advisor Alistair Campbell gets justifiably caned.

James Standley, BBC:
“The obsessive, controlling mood of the tour management - exemplified by employing Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell as media consultant - led to the Lions being perceived as arrogant and distant.”

Paul Lewis in the New Zealand Herald asks:
“Has there ever been a rugby tour so steeped in PR? Regardless of the result of the test series, the 2005 Lions will be remembered for a PR campaign which often had little to do with rugby and which ultimately worked against the overall objectives of the tour.”

Paul Ackford concurs in the Sunday Telegraph:
“The other reason to file the game away in the top drawer of memory is that it was personal. Before the start, when the teams were announced to a packed crowd split evenly between black and red, the announcement of Tana Umaga's name brought howls of derision from Lions supporters.

“It was evidence that Lions media adviser Alastair Campbell's smear - or should that read spear - campaign against the All Black captain had struck a chord with British and Irish supporters.

“But what it did to the All Blacks was a whole lot worse. Umaga had the game of his life, thriving on the animosity that washed around the stadium off and on the pitch.”

David Kirk in the same newspaper explains:
“New Zealanders respect and respond to grim determination, they believe in people who shut-up and put-up, and they react rather badly to sore losers and wimps. Anyway, my and four million New Zealanders' grateful thanks go to Sir Clive and Alastair for the help they gave the All Blacks in preparing for this Test match.”

Alistair Reid, The Sunday Herald:
“They came, they saw, they lost – and they wouldn’t be worth a candle as international sportsmen if they were not smarting as a consequence this morning. ... [H]owever right it may have been in principle to raise the issue of Tana Umaga’s dangerous tackle on Brian O’Driscoll, it was whingeing pommery at its worst to prolong the issue for a whole week.”

Alex Spink, The Mirror:
“To say this series has been a disaster from a PR standpoint is an understatement. Lions have lost the mind games even more heavily than the rugby games. That one contributed to the other is almost certain.”

The Times of London’s chief sports writer David Walsh:
“The furore created by Woodward and Campbell over the Umaga tackle was ill-judged and counter-productive. The principal effect was to strengthen the All Blacks’ resolve and ensure there wouldn’t be a trace of complacency in yesterday’s performance. They won the first Test 21-3 and then turned up for the second with a sense of grievance. For the Lions, the controversy brought no benefit.”

Richard Williams, The Guardian:
"Allowing Campbell to write about his experiences in a newspaper column during the tour was a mistake; inviting him to give a team talk seemed an act of madness, an insult to the memory of the great Lions coaches of former years."

Stuart Barnes, The Sunday Times:
“Not for the first time, the cynicism of spin circumnavigated 360 degrees and helped its opponents. Henry had feared complacency, but not after a daily diet of tales of Terrible Tana helped unite not just a team but an entire nation. Cue an eruption as Umaga scores the first New Zealand try. Sheer genius.

“The truth is, [Campbell] was out of his depth in distant New Zealand. He didn’t know his market, an unpardonable sin for one weaned on an obsessive diet of focus-group philosophy. Having dealt with the Westminster press, he did not think the New Zealand rugby-writing fraternity could cause him too many problems. He forgot that public support lifts teams in live sport. The sheer scale of cynicism infuriated Wellington. The result was one of the worst weeks in the Lions’ illustrious history — on and off the field — and a propaganda campaign that led to furious New Zealand determination, masterminded by Woodward and Campbell.

“To persist in the attack on Umaga may have been a cathartic experience for the Lions management, but catharsis does not save Test series.”

Jim Kayes, Stuff NZ:
“The All Blacks were stomped, head-butted and punched in Saturday night's series-winning 48-18 thrashing of the Lions, but have no complaints that no one has been cited.”

Richard Boock, New Zealand Herald:
"Call me old-fashioned, but if the blatant cheating, obstructing, spoiling and whingeing that overwhelmed Saturday's contest represented a step up, then the Reds are a worse side than even Laurie Mains imagined. ...

"Improved? Only if you mean they took out even more players illegally than they did in the first test; only if you mean they threw more elbows, punches and knees, and infringed more thoroughly, and for longer.

"Better? Only if you're talking about the volume and frequency of their complaints, the shrieking of their protests, or their prospects of being selected in the Lions Debating Team."

THE UMAGA AFFAIR – RE-VISITED

In one of the darkest chapter’s in recent rugby history, the New Zealand Herald unmasked the cynical ploy of Woodward and Campbell:
“All Black captain Tana Umaga asked for Brian O'Driscoll's phone number last Sunday morning - but did not get a response for 24 hours, during which time the Lions had lit the fuse of the spear tackle controversy. All Blacks media manager Brian Finn asked the Lions for the injured captain's phone number for Umaga to use, but 24 hours later, there had been no reply - and, by that time, O'Driscoll and the Lions management had given a press conference at which they outlined, among other things, their disappointment at not hearing from Umaga.”

Richard Williams, The Guardian:
“On Wednesday the Dominion Post newspaper ran an interview with a local woman who had been visiting her sick father in hospital on Saturday night when O'Driscoll arrived for treatment. Upset that other patients had apparently been moved aside to make way for the Lions' captain, she noticed tears in his eyes and told him: "It's no use crying. All you've done is hurt your shoulder. That's what happens in rugby."

A MYTH EXPOSED

For the past several years, British critics have harped that the Super 12 competition has exposed New Zealand forwards as softies who can’t foot it with the best forwards in the Northern Hemisphere. Many people who should know better have insisted the same thing about Henry’s new All Black pack.

Eddie Butler starts a retreat in the Observer:
“Rather sniffily, we in the less radical northern hemisphere used to say that the dash of the Super 12 was rather contrived. Slightly cosmetic. Or that entertainment comes only at a price. If you promote adventure, you downgrade the basics. Yes, we all knew that the All Blacks could do the fancy-dan stuff, but they had lost the hard arts of Test rugby.

“My foot. This series was won by the All Blacks forwards, even before Carter began his virtuoso turn. The front five always had the nudge - the most telling three inches in the game - at the engagement of the scrum and they turned the Lions at will on the touring team's put-in.”

Sean Fitzpatrick, The Sunday Times:
“If you suggested eight months ago that the All Black forwards would dominate the Lions everybody would have thought you had lost your marbles. But that is exactly what happened.”

Paul Waite, The Haka website:
“The All Blacks tight five were totally dominant, and this platform gave the backs room to create scoring opportunities out wide.”

Gregor Paul, New Zealand Herald:
“The pat-a-cake world of Super 12 was supposedly producing Chardonnay All Blacks who just didn't have enough fruit to leave a meaningful impression on the palate. But that myth has been exploded and now it has to be questioned whether the confrontational style required to win in Europe is appropriate for the brave new world of test football. The game has moved on and the Lions have looked distinctly uncomfortable with the pace of rugby out here.”

Zinzan Brooke , BBC:
“I think the northern hemisphere will now stop criticising the Super 12 and writing it off as touch rugby. The skills that the All Blacks showed on Saturday are exactly the same skills the sides have been doing in the Super 12. You saw the confidence to off-load in the tackle from New Zealand - I just didn't see that from the Lions.”

LORD HAW-HAW GETS HIS COMEUPPANCE?

Of course, no person has been more responsible for pushing the Super 12 myth than the Times influential rugby correspondent Stephen Jones. You’d like to think the All Blacks dominating performances might lead Jones to paysome due respect and credit. Don’t fool yourself. If anyone thought Woodward and Campbell’s whinging was beyond the pale, Jones out-did both of them this past weekend.

“We could have won,” Lord Haw-Haw insists:
"I will go to my grave believing firmly that British and Irish rugby had 15 players to field who could have won the series if everything else had happened properly and if fortune had smiled."

And Jones doesn’t have the grace to stop there. In a follow-up column, the poser further endears himself to New Zealand rugby fans:
“It is also doubtful if any European team will ever win in New Zealand if it allows the All Blacks to dictate the pace, the terms and the rules. Once again the officiating was execrable.”

WHERE FROM HERE FOR AWESOME AB's?

And finally, a suitably impressed Greg Crowden of the Sydney Morning Herald asks the obvious:
“[Australians] began to feel as off-colour as they all pondered how in the hell were we going to get the Bledisloe Cup off them? The All Blacks' physical defence was so intimidating, their self-confidence so overwhelming, and their ability to make big names from the north look so insignificant they appeared to have regained that impregnability that made them unbeatable for so many decades.”

Check back in a few days when we mop-up the mid-week games and preview the Third Test. Cheers!