Awesome All Blacks close to true rugby greatness

But only the great teams win even when they are playing badly - and that was what we saw from the New Zealand rugby team at Twickenham last Sunday. The All Blacks try-line was breached four times by a lively but naïve England side (one try was disallowed by the video referee) but no matter - the New Zealanders simply upped their play when they needed to and ran out comfortable winners.

Strength in depth the key to the All Blacks success

The building blocks of the current New Zealand team were put in place in 2005 when they comprehensively (and at times ruthlessly) disposed of Clive Woodward's British Lions touring team. The conventional wisdom in the British Isles was that the British Isles defeat was mostly attributable to the hapless Sir Clive and his huge army of over paid officers - 'Lions led by donkeys' was the generally held point of view. This rather denigrated New Zealand's efforts and it soon became clear that the squad that All Black coach Graham Henry had assembled was exceptional. Tri Nations wins in 2005 and 2006 were to follow the hammering of the Lions as well as a Grand Slam winning tour of the British Isles in November 2005. What was remarkable about these successes was that Henry continuously rotated his players in his determination to build an invincible squad. Rugby Union is the toughest of contact sports and the risk of injury is ever present. So Henry sought to ensure not just that he had a team of fifteen players who could beat all-comers, but that he had two such teams!

Daniel Carter lights up Twickenham

Fly half Daniel Carter scored 26 of New Zealand's 40 points on Sunday, but he wasn't even supposed to be playing. Graham Henry had decided, in line with his rotation policy, to play Nick Evans in the fly half position keeping Carter fresh for the sterner Tests against France ahead. But Evans was injured shortly before the England match so Carter was drafted in. He was exceptional in every department of the game - far more than just the 'kicking machine' that he was dubbed by England coach Andy Robinson after the match. Carter is only 24 years old but has the look of a much more mature player and he certainly has the bottle to kick conversions even when the crowd is hostile. There was ill-mannered booing by the Twickenham faithful when Carter lined up his kicks - but that didn't faze him in the slightest. With the ball in hand Carter has poise and acceleration, and as a play-maker he has the rugby intelligence of the great number 10s - like Joel Stransky, Mark Ella or Barry John.

The great prize is within New Zealand's grasp

The All Blacks have only once won the Rugby World Cup - the inaugural tournament in 1987 when they won the final in Auckland. The 1987 team are well into middle age now and a whole rugby generation has grown up in New Zealand since that solitary victory. That hurts the Kiwis hard - rugby is more than a national sport in New Zealand it is a national obsession. So everything that All Black rugby has been doing so well in the last few years has been with one goal in mind - to win the Webb Ellis trophy in France next October and then retain it four years later on home soil in Auckland. It is in this context that the win at Twickenham should be seen and Graham Henry and his fellow coaches will be more concerned with New Zealand's defensive lapses than they will be with celebrating their team's success.

France will be a sterner test

The All Blacks now face the current Six Nations champions France on successive Saturdays and they will do this knowing that the mercurial French are probably the only real threat to their 2007 World Cup ambitions. France swept a very good New Zealand team aside in the semi-final in 1999 and could well be the All Blacks opponents in the Final in Paris next year. Henry will shuffle his team in Lyon next Saturday, and a week later in Paris, to find the right defensive combination to thwart the flair of the French and to continue to build towards next year's tournament. If he succeeds the dour Mr Henry might even favour us with a smile!