After the Lord Mayor’s Show comes… another Lord Mayor’s Show. Different cities, same theatre. Argentina could not quite slay the big beast that materialised before them in north London – Japan, everyone’s second favourite rugby team all of a sudden, remain the only name in town on the giant-killing front – but my, they landed their fair share of solid blows. The reigning champions will still be counting their bruises at Christmas.
And counting their luck just a little, too. They were decent value for this bitterly hard-won victory – their second-half performance was terrific, with the centre Conrad Smith and the No 8 Kieran Read in magisterial form, supported to the hilt by the lock Brodie Retallick and the cross-code midfielder Sonny Bill Williams – but the try that put them ahead late in the third quarter, bagged by the scrum-half Aaron Smith, had a slightly funny smell about it. Indeed, there were Puma supporters among the crowd of 89,000-plus, a World Cup record, who thought it reeked to high heaven.
When the Pumas, on the verge of being broken but still 16-12 up, killed a ruck en masse a few metres from their left corner flag as the All Blacks switched the blowtorch to full heat, the referee Wayne Barnes duly awarded a penalty. But he also played advantage, and when the Argentinian outside-half Nicolas Sanchez grabbed a loose ball and scuttled out of his 22, he was hit high and illegally by the New Zealand hooker Dane Coles.
Barnes spotted it – he told both captains as much – but returned to the original offence rather than taking action over foul play. From the resulting line-out, the crucial try was scored.
“Yes, it was a turning point,” said the South Americans’ coach, Daniel Hourcade, but he was in no mood to reflect further on the incident. Perhaps wisely. This is a long tournament. A team putting themselves on the wrong side of the whistling fraternity on the first weekend has precious little chance of reaching the last weekend.
And in fairness to Barnes, he controlled things outstandingly well amid the smoke and bullets of an eye-wateringly physical contest. He was certainly even-handed. When the All Blacks dominated the opening exchanges, working the Pumas to the limit of their endurance with some high-tempo, multi-threat attacking play, he gave Daniel Carter regular sightings of the sticks by penalising defensive transgressions. When the tide turned 20 minutes in, the Argentina lock Guido Petti Pagadizaval scoring from close range after strong approach work from his fellow forwards Leonardo Senatore and Agustin Creevy, so did Barnes’ mood.
New Zealand 26 Argentina 16 player ratings
As so often over the long stretch of a 14-year career at Test level, Richie McCaw was at the heart of it: yes, even when he was far from the heart of the action.
Half an hour into the contest, the record-breaking flanker and molten-hot favourite for eventual canonisation flicked out a boot at his opposite number, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, while laying prone amid the flotsam and jetsam of a deconstructed ruck just inside the New Zealand half. The big Puma stumbled, joined McCaw on the deck and the television match official – him again – spotted it from his eyrie.
Barnes, some way down the list of the champions’ favourite officials following his handling of the World Cup quarter-final in 2007 (forgive and forget is not an option in the land of the silver fern) had no choice but to wield the yellow card, and McCaw trudged off to the cooler with the stadium at boiling point. And that wasn’t the half of it. Every time the big screen showed the skipper sitting forlornly on the naughty step, there was a cacophony of boos and whistles. Which was rather sad.
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McCaw may be seated at God’s right hand in rugby terms, but saintliness has never quite been his thing, irrespective of what may happen in the future. His routes into opposition rucks have long been a subject of debate – according to the joke doing the rounds at Wembley yesterday, there is a Sir Bobby Moore entrance at the front and a Sir Richie entrance at the side – but no open-side specialist worth a light has ever been a paragon of virtue when it comes to messing up the other team’s possession. The man from Oamaru may have merited a few more visits to the sin bin down the ages, but he also deserved better treatment than he received from the paying public.
“It’s normal over here, isn’t it?” said the All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, waspishly. “It’s been happening for years and it’s a lack of respect for a great player. You have to be great to get booed. If you’re no good, nobody cares.” And McCaw? How did he feel? “I was in the bin when it happened, so I didn’t have a lot of comeback,” he said. “It’s happened before. Getting wound up about it isn’t going to help you.”
Conrad Smith also saw yellow for a transparently illicit attempt to pilfer the ball at an attacking Puma ruck and at one point, the holders were down to 13 men. “Both of those offences were pretty dumb,” Hansen remarked. “We can’t keep playing with people off the field.” But there was nothing dumb about his side’s second-half display, despite a couple of butchered opportunities.
Nehe Milner-Skudder, the new man on the right wing, was one of those guilty of waste – his spilling of a top-notch offload from Williams was a shocker – and other chances slipped by when Read overcooked a scoring pass to McCaw and Sam Cane, the substitute back-rower, fumbled with the line beckoning.
But Cane put the thing to bed 14 minutes from time, cantering past the exhausted Pumas off a straight spin going left. That’s the thing about All Blacks. Even when they do bad things, the good things are never far away.
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