by Richie McCaw
The ‘what else?’ feeling had gone. We’d got used to the new normal. All that preparation for the unexpected seemed to have worked. Rather than thinking, Shit, why is all this happening to us, we’re thinking, Bring it on. We even said, ‘There’ll be something else happen, there will be more things happen, just expect it and deal with it.’ In a funny sort of way, everything that’d gone wrong was keeping our feet on the ground, reinforced by my meetings with Bert and Ceri. Even the foot. Ceri was telling me that this was the challenge that’s been given me; it was about how I dealt with it.
Other teams were having their challenges. Australia had lost Kurtley Beale.
When training was over on the Tuesday, I went to the pool and did 40 minutes aqua jogging just to get things going. I still couldn’t train on the Thursday, so I did a light bike to make sure I was okay, then I managed to get through the captain’s run on the Saturday, still in gym shoes. Just enough to feel like I had it sorted. The physios were trying things like whether strapping helped or different things in my boots helped. But nothing seemed to make much of a difference.
We heard during the week that the Aussie camp was pretty confident. I’m not sure where this information came from, but there are people in and out of the teams’ hotels all the time, and secrets are hard to keep. I know that—trying to get around the hotel without limping on my ‘niggle’. However accurate the rumour might have been, it was great to hear that they were confident. I don’t go along with most people who say the Wallabies are more dangerous when they’re confident. I reckon they’re more vulnerable.
I don’t know whether the Aussies heard any rumours about us, but if they’d heard the truth, they would have been alarmed: that was the best-prepared All Black team I’ve ever been a part of. I knew the Aussies were going to get it. Part of it was an address on Thursday evening from Willie Apiata. He may not be a great public speaker, but he carried an aura. He talked about what he did when he won the VC, and why he did what he did, what drove him. As much as he fought for his country and his family, the main driver was his mates, the ones who stood at his shoulder, upon whom he depended for his life. I could see from the rapt faces around me that his words were sinking in. We were mates. We didn’t have to face live rounds, but we were in this together and we’d get it done.
On the way to the ground on the bus, I looked out on the Great North Road part of the Fan Trail and saw a sign on one of the car yards.
Izzy Dagg’s moment of genius against Australia in the semi-final.
I HOPE YOU’RE READY QUADE. RICHIE IS.
I wondered whether Cooper had seen it when the Aussie bus went by.
I went into that game looking for the moment we’d let slip in Brisbane. It came a lot sooner than I thought it would. As early as the 20-minute mark, I could see the inevitability in their eyes. They knew this day wasn’t going to go that good for them.
James Horwill had won the toss and chose to kick off, to put pressure on us. Which Quade immediately blew by kicking it out on the full.
Cory won Man of the Match by defusing all their bombs and looking tricky every time he got the ball, but Israel could have got it too. From his first touch, he beat four tacklers, then a couple of minutes later, after we’d punched it up midfield, Piri threw it right to Aaron, who found Izzy carving right, inside Anthony Fainga’a and on the outside of Rocky Elsom. Electric Izzy broke Elsom’s tackle—second time in five minutes—this time with a fend, then body-swerved Quade on the cover. Cooper tried to hang on and it looked like he might have got Izzy across the touchline, but Izzy served up a brilliant one-handed flip off the turf as he rolled out, collected by Ma’a on the inside, and we were over in the corner.
Five-nil, only seven minutes gone.
Piri missed the conversion and then a relatively easy penalty, after Brad had timed his jump brilliantly on their throw, got in front of Elsom and swatted it back our side. I took a wide pass on the charge, and saw Radike Samo and David Pocock in front of me. The plan was to make Pocock tackle, stop him lurking around the tackle as the second man in, so I veered right to try to find his shoulder. I got a bit of him—and a lot of Samo, who smashed me from the left—but it was enough. Pocock got himself over the ball, but only by bridging with both hands on the ground. Penalty, just to the right of the posts. Perfectly to plan, except that Piri bounced it off the posts.
Cory Jane won Man of the Match by defusing all their bombs.
At that point, the Aussies looked shell-shocked, but not beaten. They kept going to the high ball, but Cory and Izzy defused those brilliantly, and we were getting quick recycled ball and finding overlaps wide and holes in the middle.
Shortly after, JK plundered a ball at the back of their ruck and we got in behind them again. From the recycle, Ma’a was at first receiver and found Aaron on the drift outside him. Taking the space, Aaron broke the line outside Ben Alexander, was half-checked by Genia on the cover, and Pocock was caught again, down on one knee trying to pinch it. This time Piri nailed it.
Eight-nil was a great start, but it didn’t necessarily reflect the dominance we had. For the first 13 minutes, we’d played the game with pace and power, had most of the possession, almost all the territory. Then came the play that broke them.
Piri cleared from a ruck on our 22, failed to find touch. O’Connor collected, found Digby Ioane on his inside. Digby showed how dangerous he was by beating Sam Whitelock, stepping Piri, fending Kevvy and charging for the line, dragging Izzy with him. Digby had Ben Alexander and James Horwill in behind him and it looked like he’d be driven over. Somehow JK just picked him up ball and all and carried him sideways away from the momentum. It was an extraordinary piece of defence.
A few plays later, after desperate D by us, they got an easy penalty in front when I was pinged for not releasing. I wasn’t actually the tackler, but three points was a hell of a lot better than seven.
Shortly after, Izzy decided to give them a bit of their own medicine and hoisted one. Quade, self-styled Public Enemy No. 1, closed his eyes as he was taking it and knocked it on. Our pressure brought another penalty, but Piri missed again. We regrouped and had them under the hammer for some phases, before Aaron stayed back in the pocket after a JK midfield charge over the gain-line and dropped the goal.
There must be an easier way to win a turnover.
That put us out to an eight-point lead again, but Cooper returned the favour, and they got back to 11–6. Although they never stopped trying and were able to get some territory and possession and put some phases together at various stages, they never looked like breaching our try-line. The JK moment with Ioane was the one that defined the game in the end, mostly because it epitomised the intensity and commitment of the whole team.
Fulltime against Australia.
Once again, the only spoiler of a great night was my foot.
During the warm-up I didn’t feel it too much, but five minutes into the game I felt it again. Something letting go. A clunk or pop or crack. The pain came back.
Again, when the ball was in play, I could get through and not think about it. It didn’t inhibit me actually running around and doing things. I could put it to the side. But as soon as the whistle went and there was a lineout 30 metres away, jogging over there was bloody sore. I’d told Deb that I’d play as long as I could do my job without thinking about the pain, but as soon as I started thinking about the foot while the ball was actually in play, and the pain started affecting the decisions I was making about what I would do, that would be the time to quit.
It was sore all the way through the semi, but only really sore when the whistle went. One of the most challenging bits was running up the tunnel at halftime. Getting on and off the field was complete agony.
But when the final whistle went, the score was 20 points to 6, and we were into the final of the RWC.
I’ve got cabin fever. We’ve been three weeks in the hotel, watching this rugby festival go on around us, at the centre of it, but also remote from it. M
y foot hasn’t helped. It’s worse, taking longer to come right. I have to rest it, choose when and where I want to walk. How far. Who might see me if I limp.
I’m sick of the bloody foot. It’s like stepping on a red-hot lump of coal. I have to change my gait slightly and then other parts of my foot get sore, but it kind of doesn’t matter any more, because I got through the semi and I know I can play in the final. I tell myself that if it’s like that for this week, I’m sweet. I can get through. If you’re ever going to be a bit tough, if ever you’re going to grit your teeth and get on with it, this is the time. If it had been another week after this one, I don’t think I could get there. Knowing there’s only one more. I keep talking to Bert. We’re down to 80 minutes. That doesn’t sound a lot. I can do that.
The hardest bit is around the team and around the media, particularly. I have to really grit my teeth and try to walk normally. The worst thing would be if it got out, and we lost. If it’s seen as an excuse.
I’ve got plenty to distract me from my bloody foot.
Jock comes to talk to us about the work and inspiration that went into bringing the World Cup to New Zealand, the approach he took, the promises he made about what the rugby world could expect from us. I’m so glad he’s still round to see it come to fruition.
A lot of my efforts go into making sure that the guys are on the job. We had a hell of a good game in the semi and my biggest concern is getting ourselves back to that state again. I’m having to think about all that with the coaches and leadership group. The mindset meeting on Monday. Getting us ready for a war against France, because I’m convinced that’s what they’ll bring.
We don’t use the emotional trigger we used in the pool game against France. Instead, different players talk about their experiences of the French. Woody talks about Paris in 2004, Conrad about Lyon in 2006, I talk about Marseilles in 2009. How we attacked and beat them then. How we took their heart away from them. We talk about them being most dangerous when they’re scared and don’t expect to win. That’s when they die for the jersey. Like 1999, like 2007. That’s what we can expect.
We hear through the grapevine that their team meeting room is plastered with newspapers, full of headlines which accuse them of cowardice, of being failures, of being an embarrassment to La France. We know that’s going to get them fizzing.
I go through the familiar names. Their front row, Mas, Servat, Barcella, might be one of the few in world rugby to equal ours. Their second row of big mean lumps. Their loosies, Bonnaire, Harinordoquy and Dusautoir, the guys who did us at Cardiff, on paper the equal of JK, Reado and me. If there’s a question mark over their halves, there’s got to be one over ours too, without Dan. Their centres: Aurelien Rougerie would be one of the few guys who measures up to Ma’a in power and speed. The French back three—tricky bastards, fast—when are they ever weak there? I keep going through those names. Any team with these guys in it has at least one great match in them and they haven’t played it yet.
Ma’a doing his best to cheer up Dan at training.
Whereas we might have.
At training, DC, Mils and I do our best out there in our gym shoes, staying close to Aaron and Beaver. The wisdom of taking Beaver on the end-of-year tour last year becomes apparent. He has the calls, knows what it’s about, fits in easily.
Inside them, Piri’s become a national folk hero in the space of two weeks. There are T-shirts everywhere of Piri with a Superman cape—Leave it to me and Chill out, I’ve Got This—and viral emails—Do I need to do everything around here? He was Man of the Match against Argentina, and, despite attending his grandfather’s tangi in the week leading up to the semi, has really stepped up and shouldered a huge workload. Since Dan went down, he’s become our main play-maker, and now he’s also kicking for goal and taking restarts, to take the pressure off Aaron.
I try not to think too much about the Dan what-ifs. We left quite a lot of points out on the park against Australia: a missed conversion and several penalties by Piri and a penalty by Aaron. Dan would have nailed most of them, perhaps all of them. Ten or a dozen points. It didn’t hurt us in that game, but it might if it happens again. Luke McAlister missed a bread-and-butter conversion in Cardiff that turned out to be the difference. But so did the French. Mind games. I try not to think about it, but logic says losing the best play-maker and kicker in the world is surely going to count sooner or later. Sooner is over: it’s later already.
We all know that as much as we have to believe that our fate is in our hands, history says we also have to survive one of those tipping moments, on which winning and losing the World Cup turns. We know there’ll be a moment when the next minute, the next play, the next second, will decide who wins and who loses. We know to expect it and be ready for it. We know we’ve got to execute in that moment, rather than freeze or worry about what will happen if we don’t.
The 1987 All Blacks were the only ones who didn’t need to survive such a moment. Grant Fox and John Kirwan come to talk to us about that tournament. Foxy’s pretty phlegmatic in the way he describes it, while JK’s quite emotional. It’s a good mix and gives the guys an inkling of how long and strong their memories will be of Sunday’s game, if we can pull it off, if we can survive that moment.
In 1991, eventual champions Australia had their tipping moment in the quarter-final against Ireland. In 1995, champions South Africa were lucky to have made it to the final—if there’d been today’s video technology available, France’s last-minute try, ruled out by the ref, would have won them the semi. In the 1999 semi, Stephen Larkham drop-kicked a goal from 48 metres in extra time to beat South Africa. Larkham had never once drop-kicked in a long test career, and was reportedly so blind he could barely see the posts from that far out. Australia went on to win the final against France, whose path was made easier courtesy of a dreadful refereeing performance by Paddy O’Brien in the pool match against Fiji, which, to his credit, he owned up to. In 2003, eventual winners England were fortunate to win against Wales and Samoa. In 2007, eventual champions South Africa had a close shave against Fiji.
I’ve just got to get through it … At the end of a shortened captain’s run on the eve of the final.
You could look at some of those moments and blame fate, chance, rub of the green, bounce of the ball, sheer luck. Whatever, that moment hasn’t come for us, yet. You could argue that the French have had several already. When the Welsh captain, Sam Warburton, was sent off early in their semi. And then later, when Stephen Jones missed a penalty he would have thrown over on any other day.
You could also argue that France have already lost against Tonga—they don’t deserve to win. But I know that the game doesn’t care who deserves what. No memory, no sentiment, no history, no fairytales. You have to believe that you can go out there and make it happen.
George Gregan brings me a bottle of Dom Pérignon for my 100th test. The last thing he says to me is, ‘It won’t fall in your lap, you know.’
On Saturday, I get through my last captain’s run, but cut it short.
On the afternoon of the game, still worried at how relaxed and expectant Dad was at this morning’s coffee, I take out the Warwick and go through my visualisations. Usually, on the facing page, I would have already listed my tick-offs for the week: weights, pad work, clean-outs, ball skills, evading, fending. This week that page is blank, and when I write down my mantras, they seem pared down to bedrock. No wonder. This is our twelfth test in 14 weeks.
Start again, get involved early.
Work rate. Keep getting up, make it count.
DMJ—tackle, hit with shoulders, bounce up
clean—ID threat, effective, ID early and remove
steal—pick my time, make it count, fully committed
run, link, demand ball, run hard, expect to bust
Just play, back my gut
Be calm, clear and decisive
Enjoy
GAB
The toughest one to deliver on might be the second-last one. Enj
oy. I’m struggling to live that part of it any more. I’ve just got to get through it.
Eighty minutes to go.
I’m looking for that moment. If I stay in the present, I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it. Unless it’s already been and gone. We’re five points up at halftime, but we’ve left another eight out on the field, lost points that we can’t get back, which may bite us in the arse.
Woody’s try might have been the moment, but I suspect it was too early in the game. The Teabag move, resurrected from 2008. Our video analysis was right. We knew the French would contest that lineout, fancy their chances, try to disrupt us early in the game. But it was so easy, so perfectly executed that maybe we thought that’s the way the rest of the game was going to go for us. It hasn’t.
Piri missed the conversion—and two penalties which were pretty handy. I don’t want the defining moment of this final to be the one when Dan went down screaming, but we’d probably be 13 points up if he was here. Aaron’s gone too now, with a bent knee. Was that the moment? Beaver’s there, though, so reassuring and assertive that it’s easy to just get on with it. Their response to the haka didn’t throw us. In Cardiff they did the red, white and blue tricolour thing. This time, in white, against the dark mass of the black-clad crowd, they formed an arrowhead with Dusautoir at the point, and everyone linking hands behind him. As we belted into ‘Kapa o Pango’—
