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Opinion – Sam Cane is clearly a big fan of yours. And mine and that of anyone who dares to comment on the All Blacks.
All Blacks Captain Sam Cane
Photo: PhotoSport / David Neilson
He played five, won two is the team’s record since Cane became Ian Foster’s captain and head coach, including back-to-back Saturday losses to world rugby superpowers Australia and Argentina.
Cane’s response to those losses, via a television interview, has been to question the rugby intellect of fans. Telling them that they have no right to express their opinion, because they do not see what is happening behind the scenes, and claiming that their comments are “hateful” and “disrespectful.”
It’s an interesting ploy and perhaps indicative of the bubble that professional teams hide in them. I’m not referring to the Covid variety either.
Here in the real world, where we who pay for television subscriptions and buy tickets to see the All Blacks play live, we wonder what people like Cane and Foster have done to deserve their status. We also judge them by their public acts and words, because that is all the access to which our hard-earned currency entitles us.
If the team plays poorly and then the captain insults our collective intelligence, are we going to a) tell him he’s a great guy and wish the players better luck next time or b) hope they keep losing in hopes of a change?
I love this international season and I suspect some others too. Honestly, I can’t get enough of watching these confused All Blacks make a mistake from one loss to the next.
Rarely has our national team seemed so ill-prepared for all that the opposition throws at them.
Good for Argentina for beating Cane and company 25-15 on Saturday. It was a historic moment for which all those interested in Argentine rugby should be immensely proud.
And, at the risk of looking a fool in Cane’s eyes, I’m going to venture to see how the Pumas did it. It was trying very hard.
Argentina is not very talented. In fact, they own only one world-class player. But they tried really, really hard on Saturday and the All Blacks had no response.
I could have told you that the Pumas would do that. That they would compete hard in the scrums and lineouts and in the breakdown, that they would rush defensively and try to hit the New Zealand ball runners behind the win line.
Argentina did that because that is all they are capable of. Energy and effort, passion. They also knew, like us, that if you can take on the All Blacks, they will run out of ideas.
We are so used in this country to giving the ball to the best player, from children’s rugby to test matches, and watching them run through or around opponents. When that doesn’t happen, we’re baffled.
Or at least that is what it seems. Behind the scenes, where it ‘really’ counts, Cane says there is tremendous work going on.
All Blacks coach Ian Foster has the backing of Sam Cane.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Apparently the team has great confidence in each other and their coaches and there is complete clarity about everyone’s role and the tactics they are going to employ. It just doesn’t show up in the paddock.
Sorry, but a pathetic performance pattern is emerging here. Of occasions when the team looks untrained and hasty, improvised and not knowing how to fight their opponent.
The British and Irish Lions, England, Ireland and South Africa have exposed that in these players and to some extent you can probably accept it. Those are elite teams, after all.
But when Australia and Argentina expose that kind of ineptitude, it’s unforgivable. And that’s about the coach and the captain and the people who put them in those positions. Or do none of us have the right to think that or say that?
The worst thing I feel about these defeats is apathy. The feeling that people expected this. That they believed that Foster and Cane weren’t the best candidates and that they would start looking and caring again once there was a different crowd in charge.
Cane called up a section of the fan base and questioned their motives and intellect and maybe that’s fair enough, maybe it’s not.
However, New Zealand Rugby’s concern is all the people who aren’t even paying attention.
I didn’t expect the protesters to march into parliament and see the coach and captain burned in effigy, but the quiet response to the defeats of two comparative rugby minnows suggests we’re not as committed to these All Blacks as NZR needs us to be.
