Andy Capostagno
John Leslie (Scotland)
Nick Mallett calls him the best inside centre in the world and wonders how the All Blacks can possibly have allowed John Leslie to play for the land of his grandfathers. There is added irony to his choice of allegiance since Leslie’s father, Andy, captained New Zealand in 10 Tests.
You might call him, at the age of 28, a late developer, for after more than 100 games for Otago, Leslie is only now playing the best rugby of his life. When he joined Scotland at the beginning of the last Five Nations campaign the team were rank outsiders. They went on to win the championship and along the way put France to the sword in Paris with a try- fest sparked by Leslie’s irrepressible attack on the gain line.
His ability to stay on his feet through the tackle, a New Zealand trait if ever there was one, allowed gifted runners like Gregor Townsend and Alan Tait to realise their potential at Test level almost for the first time. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Scotland’s progress in the World Cup will be linked directly to the fitness of Leslie.
Graham Henry (Wales)
All right, so this was supposed to be about players to watch, but the effect that Graham Henry has had on the Welsh team since signing terms to coach them 15 months ago has been such that the performances of a number of gifted players pale into insignificance.
Henry’s record prior to guiding the principality speaks for itself. In six seasons as coach of Auckland his charges won 80 of the 102 games they played. He coached the Auckland Blues to the Super 12 title in 1996 and 1997 and to runners-up spot in 1998. Later that year, when the All Blacks were in the midst of a five-match losing streak, Henry seemed the obvious choice to take over from the beleaguered John Hart, but the New Zealand Rugby Football Union ignored him.
The beneficiaries were a Welsh team who had just lost 96-13 to the Springboks in Pretoria. Posters went up around Wales misquoting the favourite rugby hymn beneath Henry’s face; “Guide us, Oh thou great redeemer.” And redeem them he did, to the extent that Wales were unlucky to lose 20-28 to the Boks at Wembley just five months after the humiliation at Loftus.
Earlier this year they went one better, beating South Africa for the first time in their history in the midst of an eight-match unbeaten run. The measure of Henry is that under him, Wales have gone from no-hopers to genuine World Cup contenders in just over a year.
Jonny Wilkinson (England)
Baptisms do not come any more fiery than the one dished out to Jonny Wilkinson. After a season as understudy fly-half to the great Rob Andrew at Newcastle, a dearth of alternatives propelled the 18- year-old boy wonder into the England Test team which played Australia in Brisbane in June 1998.
Actually he had come on as a 79th-minute replacement against Ireland in April, but the Australia game was his first start. England lost 76-0. Wilkinson spent the game tackling, tackling, tackling and, perhaps mercifully, missed the rest of England’s dismal tour with a leg injury.
Since then he has improved somewhat. The next time England visited Australia, for this year’s centenary Test, Wallaby coach Rod MacQueen said, “Jonny Wilkinson has a big, big future at Test level. The guy does it all and he does it so naturally. It’s a long time since we’ve seen talent like that in our game.”
Wilkinson has joined Michael Owen as the darling of the British tabloids, and in a nation famed for its conservatism it is amazing to see how much the critics are expecting from this callow youth. The foundation of Wilkinson’s game is his place kicking. If he should happen to guide England to glory with his educated boot he can write his own bonus cheque.
John Eales (Australia)
It is hard to believe that in the whole history of the game there has ever been a better or more consistent player than the man once known variously as “Slippery” and “Paramatta”, but who now answers to the name “Nobody”, because nobody’s perfect.
John Eales had just turned 20 when he won a World Cup winner’s medal at the 1991 World Cup. He was a key member of the team which went on to dominate world rugby for the next three years. But when, inevitably, the team began to decline and even players as great as David Campese revealed themselves to be human after all, Eales’s game just went from strength to strength.
Having dominated in both tight and loose play for four years, he then took on the mantle of place kicker when Michael Lynagh retired. He instantly became the best kicking forward since John Taylor retired in the mid-1970s, but to this day has to be persuaded to accept the kicking tee.
Bad injury has curtailed his appearances this year, but it may have served to give him a much-needed rest at exactly the right time. Eales will be fit for the World Cup, which means that the organisers may as well save time and engrave his name on the trophy for player of the tournament right now.
Andrew Mehrtens (New Zealand)
If anyone ever doubted that players’ reputations rise and fall according to the amount of silverware in the trophy cabinet, consider Andrew Mehrtens and Joel Stransky. The latter was a sublimely gifted but frustratingly inconsistent player who landed a drop goal when it mattered, in the dying minutes of extra time in the 1995 World Cup final.
By contrast Mehrtens has been quite simply the best and most consistent fly- half in the world for half a decade. But in the same match, with the scores tied at 9-9 towards the end of proper time, he dropped at goal and missed, and with that the All Blacks’ hopes died. “It was a kick I would expect to land nine times out of 10, but it missed,” Mehrtens said.
Which says most of it, other than that if you had to pick a player to kick you a goal for your life, you would not look beyond the gifted 26-year-old from Canterbury. Earlier this year he set a new world record by kicking nine penalties in a Test against Australia, and with conditions in Britain likely to be the exact opposite of Potchefstroom in July, Mehrtens is the most likely match winner of any side at the tournament.