Why do you think the All Blacks lost?

Question

I am a diehard All Black fan and have been here following them in Europe, for all except the Romania game. I returned home for a week and came back to Cardiff on Friday to watch the game.

I’ve read all the negative press and publicity and I find it hard to believe how hard we are on these boys. We are gutted of that there is no doubt. But so are they. They have worked long and hard over the last 4 years and despite being totally blown out of the game by the referee, like the good sportsmen they are none of them have even suggested that the referee had anything to do with it.

We lost because of a number of reasons, some of them of our own doing and some of which we had no influence on whatsoever.

1) The Referee.
To be continued.

Détails supplémentaires

1) The Referee.
Despite us leading in the first half, I had major reservations about the ref at halftime. We had dominance in the scrums, yet he gave the French free kicks. We took a scrum through 90 degrees and he reset the scrum with their feed. The French were offside at all the rucks and mauls and slowed our ball down illegally, throughout the game. Has anyone ever seen a French side (the most indisciplined side in rugby) not concede a penalty in so many phases. And this all without the Luke McCallister send off and the forward passes.

2) Did the All Blacks play badly.
We made some awful decisions in the game and we had a few knockons but overall we played well. We just didn’t play to our strengths and the French took advantage of the lax refereeing to not allow us to play our normal fast game

3) Some selection decisions
We left out Doug Howlett the form winger in the super 14 and the form winger at the world cup so far. Everytime we had a line break, (2 by McCallister and 1 by Nick Evans) there was no one there for them to pass the ball to which is where you would usually find Doug.
We took 2 centres to the world cup and used out best full back as a centre. We said this wasn’t going to happen again, We said we had learnt from the past when fullback Cullen and then McDonald were used as centres yet we did it again.
Sione Lauaki should have been bracketed with Chris Masoe pending the result of the appeal. We would have had the ideal foil for Sebastian Chaval when he came on. Remember what he did to Masoe in the tests earlier this year.

4) Some substitution decisions
No disrespect to the boys that came on but apart from the forced substitutions, this is one game where we needed the leaders in the side to stay on the field. Instead with Carter off, we substitute Kelleher, and Oliver, and then we lose Jerry Collins to injury, the carefully constructed leadership team were now all off the field.

5) History
Did history play a part in this.
Very much so. We panicked. You could see it in the minds of the players as soon as the French started to come back, there was for the first time in this All Black team an element of doubt.

6) Some on field decisions
Why did Luke McCallister take the conversion. Here we have Nick Evans who has been the best kicker in New Zealand having a perfect record in the game against Scotland on the field and we let McCallister who hadn’t really kicked throughout the tournament take the conversion.

Luke McCallisters drop goal effort. I have to presume that McCallister attempted the drop goal because he thought we had an advantage. We had multiple opportunities earlier in much better positions to take the drop goal but we didn’t do this. Instead we persisted with the pick and drive when the French were obviously being allowed to infringe over and over again in this area. We didn’t play to our strengths which was to get the ball to our backs once we had tied up the Frenchman close to the line.

7) More food for thought.
Okay Paddy o’Brien has something to answer for here. He gives the least experienced referee at the world cup who is obviously not savvy to the tactics that can be used by some players and for the theatrics that can be used by the French players and falls for the “dive”.
Was their a directive from above in this regard. No Southern Hemisphere ref was given a quarterfinal which is really hard to believe.

Did the referee have a hidden agenda knowing that England had qualified and that he would not want his English team to meet the All Blacks?
Are we seeing here what we saw in Cricket? Is there something underhand going on we should be wary off.

Okay I have had my rant. I am back on my way home, selling my tickets to the semifinals and finals. The English are awful winners. We know what we have had to put up with for the last 4 years from them. I’ve already received umpteen texts from my English friends rubbing it in and cant stand to be here a second longer.

I understand the All Blacks will be home on Wednesday. We don’t need to give them a heroes welcome as some have suggested but neither do we need to pulverize them as I guess is inevitable. The truth is that they did try their best. Whatever else you say about them, they tried their best and they were in their to the end. Its very hard to beat the opposition as well as the referee and 2 linesman.

And as for Henry, lets not forget what he has done. We might not have agreed with some of the things he did. But lets not forget the great things he did. Our first grand slam, the bledisloe cup, winning now a total of 42 out of 48 tests. We know he is probably one of the best coaches that we have. And the 3 wise men would have learnt a lot from this campaign. Do we really need to start from scratch again?

And as for Henry, lets not forget what he has done. We might not have agreed with some of the things he did. But lets not forget the great things he did. Our first grand slam, the bledisloe cup, winning now a total of 42 out of 48 tests. We know he is probably one of the best coaches that we have. And the 3 wise men would have learnt a lot from this campaign. Do we really need to start from scratch again?

Guess UNREAL HERO only read the first few lines and then commented. Read the whole thing mate.

Answer 1

Meilleure réponse - Choisie par les votants

The All Blacks lost because they were over confident and thought that just by turning up they would win and also because on the day France were the better team.

Answer 2

lack of experience

lack of heart

all the best
Ian

Answer 3

accept defeat.........sucks but its the truth.

Answer 4

The French were more determined and had less pressure as the under dog

Answer 5

the All Blacks know they are the best team in the world, usually.

Les Bleus have something to prove. It was a mistake to lose to Argentina, as hosts they have something to prove, to their fans and even more importantly, to their sponsors!

Answer 6

1)France kept the allblacks in front of their defence by constantly kicking.
2)The all blacks didn't expect a brilliant defensive performance and were unprepared for this type of attritional game. They thought the frogs would attempt to constantly run it back at them.
3)This was demonstrated when they didn't even attempt to kick a drop goal. They were totally devoid of ideas on how to win a close game and frankly panicked and got suffocated when they could see what could happen....if they didn't get their shite together.

Answer 7

Too much self-confidence !!!!

Answer 8

I agree with the above

overconfident or underestimating
combinations not gelling
some players are out of form
not challenge during pool stages of the tournament
crucial handling errors
inexperience - toeava
clearly no composure like the game they played and won in south africa in the dying minutes
rotation policy of henry, clearly, although all players have a few international games under the belt, experience wins close encounters
More game time needed for players since most of the reconditioning all blacks looked rusty right from the super 14 get go. Recondition has also prooved itself to be nothing less than a holiday season for the players because they still get injured and poor form may have arisen due to that fact

Answer 9

oh my.... lol that was way too long!! why did we loose obviously you were there you saw it all, oh you poor thing must have be far worse there than it is back here! however I think you'll find that most of the AB supporters - are over it! only the diehards are not.... there are a number of reasons why the ABs lost however simply put out-played lost composure and didnt play to there ability.... oh well nevermind

Answer 10

Typical, New Zealander - instead of accepting your defeat, you choose to blame the referee. You guys still claim the "Suzie" gave the All Blacks food poisoning before the 1995 WC final. Geez, you still even moan about the ref at the 1976 All Black tour to South Africa. Just accept your defeats.

The reason NZ lost? They are chokers!
Secondly, and more importantly, France were the better team (most notably in the second half) and they deserved to win. Yes, it was a foward pass that led to the last French try, but it's not to say that they still would not have won.

*Edit*
Hey Jonboy, it is most certainly human nature to blame the referee after a loss, however New Zealanders take it to the next level. After every single World Cup final, the losers congratulated the winners except for the All Blacks who claimed they had food poisoning in 1995. What an absolute joke. I have previosly mentioned the 1976 All Balck SA tour.
Which other country moans about a referee decision 30 years ago. You guys are so used to winning that as soon as you don't, you have to blame someone. When the better team wins, most supporters would be able to admit to this. However, the fact that the rugby category is flooded with "Blame the ref" questions proves that you guys generally don't accept defeats humbly. When other countries lost over the last month, did you see any "Blame the ref questions"? No!

Answer 11

Hey "unreal hero", I don't think that is fair saying typical NZer's.... not accepting defeat.

It is human nature too blame other things/people. Everyone blames outside influences for their failures.

Psychology states that a person in a situation will usually blame other people, the circumstances and things out of their control.

Psychology also states that people observing someone in a situation will usually blame the person in the situation.

This makes perfect sense: we (AB fans) are blaming something else i.e the ref. Everyone else (non Ab fans) is blaming us - for choking or underperforming or whatever.

I'd also like to add that every team moans about the ref whenever decisions in a match don't go their way!

e.g Australia in the last tri nations match. They blamed the ref for the loss. He made some questionable calls which helped the ABs to win.

e.g South Africa after their game in Christchurch this year moaned and bitched about the ref. The captain stated - "if Richie Mccaw was in a green jumper with blonde hair or a yellow jumper with dreads he would never finish a test match".

e.g The Lions in 2005 made a HUGE deal of the taking out of BOD. They accused us of intentionally injuring him and blamed their whole series loss on the fact that we took him out.

Everyone does it!! Stop labeling us kiwi's for something that everyone does!! Are you telling me you have never been angry at a ref after a game.

People are so narrow minded in here.

I still remember when Australia got knocked out of the soccer world cup by Italy. They were complaining for months about that!! I have to admit they had reason to be angry but they over-cooked it.

Edit:

Firstly: The Welsh still blame the ref for a game in 1978 when one of our players took a dive in the lineout in the last minute. We got a penalty and ended up winning. HOWEVER the ref has maintained over the years that the penalty was unrelated to the diving player, this is easily seen if you watch the lineout (instead of just the player who dives). The Welsh still go on about his. So that is in response to "Which other country moans about a referee decision 30 years ago?". WALES DO!!

I can see how you are unhappy with the way we go on about the food poisoning. It has never actually been proven, Ian Jones states that it never happened but other players still argue that it did. We will never know what happened but at the end of the day SA were on fire that day and deserved to win.

It is only the minority who complain and make such a big deal. Trust me... most of my friends have stated that we choked and the ref had nothing to do with it. Just because a few people are blaming the ref on this website doesn't mean we all do. Read every single post, there are plenty of people congradulating the french (and they are kiwi's believe it or not).

I don't know much about the 1976 tour.... But it doesn't bother me.... whatever happened. Enlighten me....

I can see why you have led to some of your conclusions over us kiwi's but NOT ALL of us are like that. Don't pigeon hole the entire country by a few bitter morons. To tell you the truth the majority of people in this country do not care about rugby at all. The popularity of rugby and the claim that is a religion here is simply a myth.

Answer 12

I think the All Blacks losing is their own fault for not finishing France off when they had the lead, also they had the easiest group in the competition not being tested by any decent teams which led them to be slightly over confident and when they met a decent side like France they blew it! Australia were in a similar position!

Answer 13

Hi there! I am french from Paris!!!
Byron Kelleher will play next year in the french team "Stade Toulousain". When J.B Elissalde, who is playing in this team (and the country one) knew it, he said: "he is going to teach us what is RUGBY. And we, french players, all know NZ has the best team and would have probably deserved to win this cup.
Your defeat is only an epiphenomena! And sport, fortunately, is not an exact science... I heard of the "glorious uncertaincy" of sport...
I am not sure the reason is the referee... And I must state NZ players as well as trainers never evocate the defeat reason could be there. NZ players standed the last 25 minutes in the french camp and they never scored! It is a classical rule to flee your own responsabilites and pretend the referee is guilty...
I guess the first (and main) reason could be a lack of strategical intelligence. How is it possible to dominate so strongly and not to score?
The second reason is the french defense... Individually speaking, french players are not that good. But together, they are a TEAM, with courage, fighting spirit and a reliable and strong organization. The french flair is now a real legend. French play rugby like professionals without any romantism and that's it.
The third reason is chance! You had no chance! France had only two opportunities and scored two times!
A last reason, but I am not sure of it -you surely have much more informations about- is that NZ players were too sure of themselves... They played rugby like they always do, perhaps thinking it will be widely enough to win. And obviously, when they had to face this unhoped resistance, they did not find the key of the door.. One time again, it is a lack of intelligence, of adaptation gifts if you prefer. They do not use to face a rough resistance. it's an experience they have not.
I must say I am more than sensible to the fact your trainer and the players congratulated the french team after the match. With such a noble mentality, I have no doubt NZ will win in 2011. They are no great teams without defeats.

Answer 14

Try taking the 2 first choice first fives and 1st choice halfback out of any side with injuries and having a blind ref bin one of your players for 10 minutes and that will pretty much cripple any side, notwithstanding the fact a forward pass try was allowed. Poor referee and injuries were the deciding factor. How do you think France would have gone with no michalek or beauxis or halfback. They would have been all at sea and their backline would have fallen to pieces.

Answer 15

what a fairplayless !!!! Accept not to be the best . A little bit of humility is good, you know ?

Answer 16

I'm french, thanks for your fair-play !!

you have probably the best team of the world, but on one game all can make !!


SORRY for my english

Answer 17

I'm a French supporter and I just woulld like to comment your post on the referee
Yes there was a forward pass but I disagree that there was a constant refereeing in favour of the French on the rucks. The ref is certainly not the major reason for your defeat

The 3 reasons to me were:

1) Committment - I agree that you were better in the lineouts, in the scrumbs, you had the ball, we didn't but in the end we wanted to win far more than you and the French were ready to die on the pitch when the AB were not

2) Overconfidence: I think that you were did not expect this level of challenge and that you are not used to be truly challenged. That is the traditional weakness of the favourites and best teams

3) Strategy / Lack of vision: why playing pick & go and not trying to score a drop goal ?

PS1: even if Michalak was one meter behind Traille on the second try I doubt that it would have change a thing ...

PS2: remember that we missed two penalty kicks

Answer 18

Hello , I'm french .
Juste one or two things about the Referee :
in the fisrt half time he forget one line out for the French , two Higt tackle , and the forward pass from carter to Mc Allistair for the first Try ...
You say that all AB are good sportsmen ... but Mr Mc Allistair said High and clear to the press that the referee had something to do with the defeat and especially with him yellow card ..
but the one and only reason why the AB lost is that they were over confident and they diden t' get respect for their opponents

sorry for my english

Sources :

Cardif Millenium , on the 07/10/2007

Answer 19

Having read all the replies I just have to add my two cents.

As a proud Kiwi I have no problem accepting defeat and have had many of them being a League supporter all my life. I sat at the game next to a French man whose english was as good as my french!!! He appologised at half time for the way we were being treated by the ref... When the forward pass was thrown he throw his hands in the air believing the ref had blown his whistle and they had blown a good move. He was amazed to find play carring on.

At the end of the game we shock hands and I wished him well. We lost. As a coach once told me read the Herald Monday morning they won end of story.

However, as an ex player and supporter of sport, 71,000 people in the stadium, millions watching on TV and the players themselves all seen the forward pass and the various offsides and infrigements by the French so how could the three officals be the only ones who didn't?? The answer is simple, they weren't, they just choose not to do anything about it at the time. It happens and is part of sport and we just have to accept it but it doesn't make it right.

We are all very quick to get on the backs of the players and coaches but the ref's seem to be untouchable... they are professionals too, they are paid to do a job and therefore when they get it wrong they need to be accountable as well!!!

Players and coaches alike will be effected by the refs decisions and I for one can not (and don't beleive I should) accept a sorry I got it wrong but I am only human from a ref that has cost us (yes us because it is all Kiwis together) a chance to acheive what anyone that knows anything about rugby knows we deserve. Not to mention the millions of dollars that have been lost because he couldn't do his job to the level he is expected and paid to achieve.

Having said all that we (as Kiwis) have to remeber we are still the best rugby playing nation on earth and the AB's are the best Rugby team in the world. Prehapes as an appology to the AB's the winners (and the lottery is now wide open) should play a 5 test series against the AB's winner takes all. And for all out there who say you lost get over it ... you are right but I beat you would not want your team to take up the challenge because you know in your heart that the AB's would win.

To the AB's and my fellow Kiwis, heads up guys you were screwed. You are great abassadors for NZ and all true New Zealanders stand beside you.

God Defend New Zealand. Kia Kaha.

Answer 20

You can have all the skill & technique in the world but the only thing that separates you from your opponent is that extra edge...where you fight (compete) like your life depends on it. The media have referred to it as passion. It is innate & can never be coached.

Forget the undercooked, underprepared, over pressured, over reffed...whatever...the kiwis need to find the mongrel in them & stop being so bloody polite!

Answer 21

The All Blacks lost because they were unable to change their tactics to suit the game. They were hamstrung by orders and training from above and so lacked any individual flair and thrust. They are scared of being called spoilsports in using the drop kick, and seem unable to chip and run rather than continually and boringly playing the bulldozer.

Any sports team confronting their opposite number with a war chant and dance before the game deserve to come to grief! This act of disgusting sportsmanship gives the world some indication of how New Zealanders see this fine game of being outright war rather than play.

Answer 22

Because the French won... get over it

Answer 23

I an a loyal Kiwi
Forget all the bulls hit goiung around on the day We lost, France won
All real KIWIs (exclude media and wanabe glory seekers) accept we were beaten on the day. Of course were were pis*ed off but life is not fair - get used to it
The ABs fronted up on the field and for the detracters you didnt, so why do you think you have the right to rubbish those who did???

UNREAL HERO
I was gonna say you are a typical ar*shole but after your answer the WHOLE WORLD know you are.
Instead of dribbling c*ap on the net come see me in person we will discuss it