Robert Kitson in London Rugby World Cup
Like one of those artworks that Rolf Harris used to specialise in, the Rugby World Cup remains a strangely dislocated blend of coloured dots, splashes and drips as it pauses for breath. Not much shape to anything, unless you count that ominous black streak running through the middle, and rather more perspiration than inspiration. In short, like Harris’s showbiz career, a bit of a mystery.
After 33 of the 41 matches, all we know is that Spain, Uruguay, Italy, Tonga, Canada, Namibia, Japan, Romania and the United States are not going to win the tournament and, surprise, surprise, the rest still have to find a way past New Zealand.
Rugby World Cup faces another two weeks of anxiety about ticket mix-ups, citings and drug tests, and Francois “early doors” Pienaar probably has a few more football clichs left in his locker. Once again it falls to the players and spectators to prevent the event failing to add up to the sum of its parts.
Let’s face it, Rugby World Cup 99 needs to mount a second-half comeback. It is the authorities’ good fortune that sizeable chunks of Scotland versus South Africa, the intensity of England versus New Zealand, Samoa’s defence in the final seconds against Wales, Fiji’s efforts, and the talents of Jeff Wilson, Jonah Lomu and Lawrence Dallaglio have partly papered over the cracks caused by dozy scheduling, poor marketing and too many one-sided games.
The good news is that there remains plenty of time to counterbalance the flaws. Whatever your view on quarter-final play- offs, the immediacy of sudden death adds a dimension even to Test rugby. This week showed us which teams are the reservoir dogs and which are the duck-pond poodles. Only the biggest and smartest survive.
Which is why a World Cup programme interview with Joel Stransky, South Africa’s masterly fly-half in their 1995 triumph, caught the eye last week. In it were several interesting observations about modern fly-half play, with Stransky claiming the trophy would be won by “the team that carries the ball up with the most pace and most strength and with the most persistence”. Flyhalves, he went on, had been forced to reassess their priorities.
“Two years ago everyone was just carrying the ball up from everywhere and teams weren’t kicking much. Now you’re starting to see fly-halves standing back in the pocket again when it is a slower ball and kicking for position. That’s why Andrew Mehrtens is looking like an absolute world- beater, especially because he’s such an incredibly accurate kicker of the ball.”
In other words, the ability of the man wearing the number 10 shirt remains a crucial area, still not quite totally swamped by the waves of musclemen in front of him. For all the virtuosity of Josh Kronfeld and Lomu, it was Mehrtens who masterminded the pool win over England which kick-started the All Blacks’ tournament.
Comparisons between the New Zealander and Jonny Wilkinson at Twickenham said everything about the merits of both sides on the day. Wilkinson received the ball on 34 occasions compared with Mehrtens’s 25, but the difference lay in how they used it. Wilkinson ran or passed 23 times, whereas his opposite number did not run once himself and passed only seven times, instead kicking the ball on 18 occasions. He also landed 15 points with the boot. These are almost old- fashioned stats, reminiscent of the days of Grant Fox, but Mehrtens is a modern- day marvel in a 21st-century professional set-up.
Like Jeff Wilson, he appears to spot far quicker than his British counterparts where the best option lies and almost without exception executes it perfectly. Whether kicking for touch or goal, his right foot strikes with a rattlesnake’s intent. And all this after an injury to his deputy Carlos Spencer. Given Tony Brown’s display against Italy, it may just be that New Zealand possess the three best number 10s in the world. The challenge to everyone else is to prove that theory wrong. Australia are still waiting for the returning Stephen Larkham to show his full range of skills, as are South Africa with the injured Henry Honiball.
Pienaar always says one of the secrets of South Africa’s success in 1995 was not showing too much of their hand in the pool matches, but the way the Boks’ second string performed against Spain and Uruguay suggested Nick Mallett is stretching that dictum to ludicrous lengths. Much snappier decision-making from, among others, Jannie de Beer will be crucial in Paris on Sunday. As for England, assuming Clive Woodward sticks with Wilkinson ahead of Paul Grayson, even they know their forwards cannot do it all themselves.
Neil Jenkins, Wales hopes, will re-ignite his back line against Australia.
All concerned know that goalkicking becomes more pivotal the longer the tournament progresses: the tale of Gareth Rees, who kicked all his 19 attempts during the competition yet failed to lift Canada out of the pool stages, will probably end up being the exception to the rule.
Lomu, similarly, threatens to make a mess of all rational theories. The way he is going at the moment he could yet fill two positions in the end-of-tournament star XV. His try from the back row against the Italians, all murderously low body positioning and short-range efficiency, was just as much out of the textbook as his 45m rampage down England’s right flank. No wonder the New Zealanders are wondering aloud if they will be able to afford him next year.
Even so, history insists the World Cup winners must have a cultured operator at number 10, whatever they can boast elsewhere. Is it really a coincidence that Fox in 1987, Michael Lynagh in 1991 and Stransky in 1995 all did the goal- kicking for their respective champion teams, fly-halves responsible not merely for their side’s heartbeat but its lifeblood too?
Mehrtens fits the blueprint. An awful lot, of course, can happen in two weeks but we seem destined to witness a tournament shaped by mountainous Polynesians and fair- haired anti-podean number 10s. And, for all the changes in rugby’s emphasis, haven’t we heard that somewhere before?