S o the All Blacks are with us again.
I have a few reservations about the culture that has arisen around the team in recent years - the commercialisation, the self-mytholigising, the whiff of sanctimony in so much of what they do - but when all those things are put to one side, you are still left with the greatest side and the greatest rugby culture this sport has ever known.
We can scoff at the nonsense of the modern haka, the bug-eyed hokey-cokey that is now far more an exercise in brand management than an expression of the team's and nation's roots, but there is no getting away from the fact that the All Blacks have set the bar at an almost impossibly high level in how have played the game. The pace, the power and the precision of their rugby have consistently put them on a pedestal that few other sides have ever been able to reach.
Those famous shirts have cast a dark cloud across my rugby-watching life. It is startling to reflect that more than 40 years have gone by since I first watched a New Zealand team in the flesh, but more remarkable still to think that so little has changed in all that time.
The menace of four decades ago is still there; so, too, the self-evident hatred of losing. They have not always had it their own way, especially in a World Cup context, but they have set a standard to which every other team should aspire.
I've long since lost count of how often I've watched them in action, but if memory serves correctly then I think I'm right in saying I've seen them play in 10 different countries and four continents. I've seen them at their magisterial best and I've seen them suffer humiliating collapses. So here, for reasons that are purely and quite shamelessly self-indulgent, I offer a few foggy memories of some of those games.
Scotland 9 New Zealand 14
December 16, 1972. Murrayfield
My Murrayfield debut, although for reasons I couldn't quite grasp at the time, rather more attention was focused on the fact that Ian McGeechan and Andy Irvine were also making their first appearances that day.
Not that I actually noticed, for my spectacularly unpatriotic position was that I only had eyes for Sid Going, the brilliant New Zealand scrum-half of that era. Going rewarded my devotion by scoring the third of the All Blacks' three tries, with a 50-yard scamper down the stand side - there was only one stand at the time - before he touched down a few yards in front of me.
Scotland 15 New Zealand 51
November 20, 1993. Murrayfield
The Scots had pushed the All Blacks close in their two previous meetings. They had lost by three points in Auckland in 1990 and by seven in the World Cup third-place play-off in 1991. With the All Blacks fielding four debutants, Scottish confidence was high - but utterly misplaced.
Jeff Wilson, one of the Kiwi newcomers, helped himself to a hat trick of tries, a haul that may not have been unconnected to the fact that Scott Hastings, a great centre, had been moved to the wing to defend that channel.
To make matters worse, the game had a dismal backdrop as Murrayfield, then in the midst of a major rebuild, was virtually a building site. It was a record defeat for Scotland at that time, and the margin did not flatter the All Blacks one bit.
England 29 New Zealand 45
June 18, 1995. Cape Town
Has any one player ever dominated a tournament to the extent that Jonah Lomu did at the South Africa World Cup in 1995? Rugby had not seen such a ruinously destructive runner and the giant winger, who had only just turned 20, lived up to his billing with two astonishing tries against Ireland in his first outing of the competition, against Ireland. It was in the semi-final against England, though, that he had his finest hour, swatting opponents aside as he crossed the line four times. No.8 Zinzan Brooke poured salt on England's wounded pride by dropping a goal from near halfway. Ignore England's points total; most of their scores came as the All Blacks were already winding down.
France 43 New Zealand 31
October 31, 1999. Twickenham
Another World Cup semi-final, and the All Blacks, still smarting over their loss to South Africa four years earlier, seemed destined to lift the trophy. They had barely broken sweat in the pool stages and a quarter-final against Scotland, and they seemed home and dry when they led France 24-10 early in the second half. But the French mounted one of the greatest comebacks in rugby history, piling on 33 unanswered points in a passage of mesmerising flair and alacrity. Christophe Lamaison was outstanding, scoring one of France's four tries and kicking 23 points. New Zealand were broken. "It was death in the changing room," said fly-half Andrew Mehrtens. "Like a funeral parlour. We were shattered."
New Zealand 48 B&I Lions 18
July 2, 2005. Wellington
The Lions tour had already gone well off the rails under Clive Woodward, who split the camp in two and picked players on reputations rather than form. They had lost the first Test in Christchurch a week earlier and needed a win in Wellington to keep the series alive. But the All Blacks had been riled by Woodward's bleating, and they were determined to dish out some punishment. Fly-half Dan Carter delivered one of the great individual performances, a masterpiece of orchestration in which he sliced the Lions apart. Carter scored two tries, four conversions and five penalties to finish with 33 points to his name.
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