What we can learn from another failure?

PETER MEECHAM / Fairfax Media

FEELING LOW: Richie McCaw's body language says it all as New Zealand contemplates another World Cup failure.

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The British press have been quick to put the boot into New Zealand and Australia after both teams were ejected from the World Cup in the quarterfinals. The Wallabies have been described as like a piece of Ikea furniture: comes as a flattened pack.

The All Blacks have been subject to all manner of choker barbs. Sections of the press have also been quick to hang the arrogant, over-confident, up-themselves signs around the collective All Blacks neck as well.

While for my money neither the players nor the management of this All Blacks team are personally arrogant in the least, it is worth considering whether New Zealand rugby is perhaps just a wee bit insular and self-satisfied.

There is going to be an official inquiry into what went wrong at the Rugby World Cup. This may be good governance as far as the New Zealand Rugby Union board and other interested parties (such as the provinces and sponsors) are concerned but from my perspective it is pretty much a waste of time.

The quarter-final against France was lost because the team did not respond well under intense pressure. End of story. Can these players be trained or coached to make better decisions under this sort of pressure. Maybe. They can certainly be improved, but this particular group of players are largely moving on, so what's the point?

The selectors always try to pick the best combination of physical skill and big-game temperament. Given that it is widely accepted that the selected squad was the best the country could muster, the only conclusion to draw is that New Zealand does not have players with the big-game temperament necessary to win matches such as last week's quarter-final.

I would be very surprised if the inquiry concludes this. It is a very unpalatable conclusion. Not good at all for our Kiwi self-image. After all, our record between world cups confirms we are the best rugby-playing nation in the world. Tourism New Zealand, the government, our biggest companies, adidas, they all think we are the best rugby-playing nation in the world. The rankings say so, too. It must be true. Then how come we can't win the World Cup?

The fact is New Zealand has enormous advantages when it comes to consistently performing better than any other team in the world. These are well known: the genetic base of players; the quality of the coaching; the school, club, provincial and Super 14 development path; the historical legacy; and most of all the intense desire and support from all New Zealanders for the All Blacks to win.

Frankly, for every other country in the world, it just doesn't matter as much whether they win or lose a test match. Putting aside the Pacific Island nations, who are in the second tier, there is no other country in the world in which rugby is the national game. None. It would be amazing if we weren't the best team in the world by world rankings.

But we can't win World Cups. The scary possibility is that this is the only time when the trump card New Zealand has, the national game card, is neutralised. Every country wants its team to be world champions. Every player desperately wants to be a world champion. All the top teams in the world play with the same intensity and fear at the World Cup that the All Blacks, driven as they are by the national obsession, do in every test.

It should be humbling for us to contemplate this possibility: the possibility that we are ranked No 1 in the world because we are the only major country in the world that has rugby as its national game and we play with an intensity that reflects the social and cultural imperatives that go with that, but when others can match this they are better.

I know a lot of people will not agree with this analysis. Largely because they don?t like the conclusion. The alternative, that we have just been unlucky in the last five world cups, is possible. But in the interests of trying of getting a proper perspective on how hard it is to win the world cup and in helping our coaches and players win another one, why don't all you disbelievers suspend your disbelief for a moment and accept that the All Blacks may no longer be the best team in the world, and haven't been for a while?

The best reason for doing this is that it frees us to learn from others. Our natural inclination in New Zealand, given that we believe ourselves to be the best rugby-playing nation in the world, is to compare ourselves to ourselves. Is Robbie Deans better than Graham Henry? Should Aaron Mauger have played at second five rather than Luke McAlister? Would we have won if all our players had played the full Super 14? (On this last point, you might like to consider that of the 120 players playing in the semifinals less than a quarter played in the Super 14).

The point is, we always default to thinking there is something within the orbit of New Zealand rugby as we know it today which needs to be changed to produce a world cup-winning team. What if this is just not true? What if we do not have the answers in New Zealand? What if we need to look all around the world to figure out how to win a world cup again?

Everyone always steals coaches, players and ideas from us. What say we steal a few back?

It is instructive to look at a team we wouldn't have dreamed of thinking we could learn anything from a month ago: Argentina. They have proved to be better big-game players than us at this world cup. They beat the team we couldn't beat and it was just as important a match for both teams. Here are a few things I think we can learn from Argentina.

1. Keep it simple. Have a clear game plan that accentuates your strengths and stick to it.

2. Develop a great kicking game and when you get ahead, use it.

3. Take every point you can get, whenever you can get it; especially look for drop goal opportunities.

4. Play with a passion and urgency that at the margin sacrifices accuracy for spontaneity.

5. Talk, encourage, bluster, cry, hug, look each other in the eye and open up and then forget it and get on with things. In short, develop an emotional openness that deals with the intensely emotional challenge of winning the Rugby World Cup.

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