24 passes to perfection

My good mate Mark Keohane wrote this piece on the team I support and allowed me to post it

Spain’s national soccer team won the European Cup in 2008, the World Cup in 2010 and the European Cup in 2012.

They did it with a core group of players – a special bunch who also won 25 and drew four successive competitive international matches. No other international soccer team has managed to win the European Cup, the World Cup and defend the European Cup.

The win in the 2012 final against Italy was emphatic. Spain, in playing the near perfect match, won 4-0.

But there was no universal acknowledgement of the achievement. Italy were not that good. Spain were also apparently not that good.

The greatest team, said some, was the Brazilians of 1970. This Spanish side, in another era, wouldn’t have enjoyed the success. And so it went.

Why is it that another’s success simply can’t be acknowledged? Why is it so hard to applaud? Why does it have to be a concession?

Spain are a great team.

To win the European Cup, the World Cup and then defend the European Cup, makes them a great team. To go 29 successive competitive matches unbeaten makes them a great team.

Why detract from them being great with an era-based comparison on greatness?

Spain beat Italy 4-0 and a year later beat the Italians 7-6 on penalties in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup.

They then lost the final to Brazil 3-1.

Suddenly the one defeat was confirmation that they were not the greatest team. In fact the one defeat gave credence to the view that they were not even a great team.

How damn awful that concession, among those paid to write about sport and those who pay to watch it, trumps celebration.

My passion isn’t international football. It’s rugby. I get paid to watch rugby. I get paid to write about rugby. That, alone, is reason enough to celebrate.

Occasionally I get paid to write about special players, special teams and a very special period in rugby.

I was fortunate to be in the media box when the Springboks beat the All Blacks 15-12 at Ellis Park to win the 1995 World Cup. I was equally fortunate to be at Eden Park in 2011 when the All Blacks beat France 8-7 to win only their second World Cup in seven attempts.

Springbok 1995 World Cup manager and former captain Morne du Plessis said the result had been predetermined and that the victory was about a nation and not a rugby team. He said the stars were aligned.

If you followed that tournament like I did, you’d only agree with him

Similarly the All Blacks success in 2011. Those in New Zealand who preach destiny and deliverance in this instance won’t get an argument from me.

The numbers were freakish. The All Blacks had only once won the World Cup, in its inaugural year in 1987 and against France. The venue was Eden Park.

The All Blacks deserved the win because of how it was fashioned. They kept the ball for the final three minutes and played down the clock. It takes a particular skill set to do that.

Each time they looked at referee Craig Joubert, with eyes pleading for full time, he played on. It was as if the rugby gods were reminding the New Zealand nation of the arrogance post the 1987 win.

How appreciative would a nation be now after a 24-year wait? Two more minutes. How much did this select group of players want it? One more minute.

Those last 60 seconds were the equal of 24 years to every New Zealander. Being at Eden Park in 2011 was like being at Ellis Park in 1995. This was so much bigger than rugby.

It was great, which is very different to what constitutes the greatest.

Every sporting code has its great moments and every sporting code has its debate about the greatest, but sometimes the discussion about greatest comes at the expense of a great moment.

I felt that happened when the All Blacks beat Ireland in Dublin in November to record professional rugby’s first perfect international season.

The All Blacks won 24-22 to claim a 14th successive victory in 2013. It took their 2011 post World Cup record to 25 wins and a draw in 27 starts and this group of players, many who featured in that 2011 World Cup, have now lost just once in 35 matches.

That’s a great achievement. That sets a standard.

The current All Blacks have won the World Cup, the Rugby Championship in successive years without losing a game, the Bledisloe Cup series against Australia, won a 3-0 home series against France and they have beaten South Africa away twice, Australia away three times, France away, England away, Wales away, Ireland away, Scotland away, Italy away and dealt with Japan in Tokyo.

They lost once to England in record fashion. In 2012 the English hammered them 38-21. It was a bit like Brazil, at home, getting it right once against Spain in the Confederations Cup final.

One result is all those who preach concession need.

The greatest, apparently, don’t lose. Defeat showed fallibility. Spain, in soccer, and the All Black, in rugby, were indeed beatable.

Which individual isn’t fallible? Which team can’t lose on a particular day?

I’ve never quite understood the rationale. We are talking about sports that involve humans.

Roger Federer, at his best, could still lose. So too Muhammad Ali. Does that detract from their greatness or them being celebrated as the greatest to hold a tennis racquet or lace up a pair of gloves?

The celebration is surely of what they did over a sustained period.

Ali’s greatness is in the manner in which he beat Joe Frazier over 15 rounds more than the whipping he gave George Foreman over eight rounds.

The greatest are defined in that moment when everything suggests they are beaten and there is no way back.

The All Blacks, in Dublin, won in a great way. They won as great teams do. They won when it seemed impossible to win.

And they didn’t do it through charity or through good fortune.

The All Blacks constructed the most incredible of five pointers and then the gods smiled on them in giving flyhalf Aaron Cruden a second attempt at the conversion to turn a 22-all draw into a 24-22 win.

The All Blacks, in 2012, were magnificent in winning 12 successive Tests, but the year was too easily remembered for the defeat in London.

This group of players played a Test as perfect as I have seen to beat the Springboks 32-16 in Soweto.

Subjectively, in my eyes, that was their peak performance. The side that won the 2011 World Cup backed it up by hammering their greatest rival at altitude in front of 90 000 South Africans.

They did it in style and with the greatest appreciation of quality and grind.

A year later, at Ellis Park, these All Blacks produced a performance equally memorable in scoring five tries and winning the last hour 31-12 when reduced to 14 men for 20 of those minutes.

It was a great rugby moment. They beat a bloody good Springbok team at Ellis Park.

The celebration was muted because of discussion of the greatness of this team. Apparently there have been greater teams, in other eras and in other countries.

And so the All Blacks story took us to Dublin.

Ireland had never beaten the All Blacks in 27 previous attempts spanning 108 years. The closest had been a draw.

Ireland had nearly drawn a second time in New Zealand in 2011 but Dan Carter’s last kick of the game secured an ugly 22-19 result. A week later the All Blacks beat the same Irish team 60-0.

Ireland, in 2013, at home, knew they wouldn’t have to front a hurting New Zealand for a second successive week.

The Irish played the game of their lives and for 40 minutes played the perfect game. They led 19-0 after 19 minutes and led 22-17 with 26 seconds to play.

New Zealand’s response, in winning a penalty 62 metres out with 26 seconds to play, was to keep the ball alive for one minute and 51 seconds and to use 13 players to complete 24 passes.

The greatness of individuals and teams is in how they play the championship moments. Boxers used to call rounds 13-15 the rounds that separate the very good from the great.

Ali’s greatness was what he could do in round 15 and not what he wasn’t allowed to do or couldn’t do in the preceding 14 rounds.

The All Blacks, battered for boxing’s equivalent of 14 rounds in Dublin, delivered 24 unanswered punches in the final moments, to win.

They did it with precision and skill.

Time will be the only measurement of whether Richie McCaw’s current All Blacks are the greatest to ever play the professional game.

For now statistically no other team can match their achievements and no other team rugby team has won every bit of silverware on offer in the same period.

No other rugby team, over a consistent period, has won with dazzle one week and bloody-minded desperation the next.

We all have opinions, but results are the most definitive of sporting opinions. You can’t argue with the end score and if the score wasn’t important then why is it we keep score?

Celebrate what Spain did in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Celebrate what the All Blacks have done since the start of the 2011 World Cup.

Those great moments, inspired by great individuals in a great rugby team, over 35 successive Test matches, should be a celebration and not a grudging concession.

Similarly Spain’s 25 wins and four draws in 29 starts, two European Cups and one World Cup.

credit – Business Day Sport Monthly Dec 2013