CHRIS HEWETT
THINKING ALLOWED
EARLY February is not obviously the moment to select a highlight of the calendar year.
Especially if that highlight is still nine months distant, leaving plenty of time for a bolt from the blue: Newcastle winning a Premiership game, perhaps; or a Television Match official getting through a whole five minutes without saying “check check” as though he were commanding a nuclear submarine on a military exercise; or even World Rugby, the non-governing governing body, doing something – anything – that looks like governance.
But all things being equal, 2024 is a one-horse race. The must-see, bethere-or-be-square, earth-shaker of an event will take place in Dublin on the second Saturday in November, when the All Blacks stand tall in the fair city and the green-shirted locals unite to stare them down.
An entire Liffey's worth of river water will flow under the O'Connell Bridge – we're talking Daniel O'Connell, by the way, not Paul – before the New Zealanders arrive under their funky new coach Scott “hipster” Robertson: the rest of the Six Nations, the knock-out stages of the “European” Champions Cup, the summer tours and the Rugby Championship can hardly be dismissed as irrelevant. Even so, Ireland-New Zealand will be the headline news: two state-of-the-art teams engaged in a “championship of each other”, to pinch a gloriously resonant phrase from the world of boxing.
It took the Irish something more than a century to find a way of beating the Kiwis: a single draw at the old Lansdowne Road in 1973 was their best showing in the 28 games played between 1905 and 2015. Then came the first victory, in Chicago of all places. Since when, the two teams have traded blows like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier: eight games, a majority of them bordering on the epic, with four wins apiece.
Add in the snarl and spite that made these contests so hot to the touch and it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that the All Blacks, serial winners-in-their-sleep of everything except World Cups, regard the Irish as Enemy No 1 and are prepared go to a very dark place in imposing their will upon them.
Hold on just a minute, you say: what about South Africa? Isn't it the case that in the hierarchy of rugby rivalries, the ancient one between the All Blacks and the Springboks still lords it over the rest?
It's a perfectly sound argument, and come the next World Cup in Australia, it may gain in strength. But that's the point. The Springboks, masters of sudden-death rugby on the grandest stages, are developing a habit of saving the best of themselves for the global gatherings once every four years. The rest of the time, their star turns can be seen flogging themselves daft in the English Premiership or the French Top 14 – or, if they're sufficiently lucky to have negotiated themselves a well-paid breather out east, in Japan's Top League.
One of the reasons the Ireland-New Zealand enmity is emerging as the defining struggle of the in-between years is their shared approach to the international game. Both base their structure on a small number of professionalised provincial teams – what might be called “super-provinces” in the case of the silver-ferners – with a strong input from their national unions. Both do their damnedest to keep key players onshore. Both draw heavily on a constellation of high-performing rugby schools (by no means all of them fee-paying, apart from those in swanky Dublin).
But there is something deeper at work. Ireland's success in cementing a position towards the top of the world rankings over the last decade means a trip there is the acid test for any major southern hemisphere touring team, of whom the All Blacks are invariably the biggest draws. It used to be Twickenham. Now it's the Aviva.
Now throw in the Andy Farrell factor. If Rassie Erasmus and his megalithic Springboks – a scrum the size of Stonehenge and just as immovable – makes him a natural for the pantomime villain role down there in Henry-Hansen-Smith territory, Farrell is respected as the classiest of class acts and feared as a genuine threat. He needs to be taken down.
All things considered, then, November could be happening tomorrow and it would still be taking too long. A week after the Dublin date, the All Blacks are slated to play France in a city to be confirmed. That will also be some collision, but while Les Bleus have won the last two meetings, New Zealand prevailed in 22 of the previous 25. And as things stand, there is no sign that Fabien Galthie's men have emerged from their bitter World Cup disappointment in the healthiest of states, be it physically, mentally or emotionally.
Thanks in no small part to Farrell's stewardship of his squad, the Irish are in a different, far more positive place, which is why the All Blacks identify the Aviva Stadium as the place of greater jeopardy. It may be that in Australia in 2027, neither of the teams under discussion will be top of the rankings. They will, however, still be the story.
