Justin Marshall: Springboks have a ‘powerful tool’ the All Blacks have lost after ‘dropping rugby games too often’
Justin Marshall says the Springboks now have a 'powerful tool' the All Blacks have lost.
The Springboks have a ‘powerful tool’ that the All Blacks team of the past had but have now lost.
That is the view of ex-scrum-half Justin Marshall, who believes that teams are no longer intimidated by fronting up against New Zealand sides in the land of the long white cloud.
Everyone wants to beat the All Blacks
Marshall’s remarks come after the All Blacks’ defeats to Argentina and South Africa this year as well as the Black Ferns’ loss to England at Twickenham.
Fellow ex-All Blacks Jeff Wilson quizzed the former halfback on whether New Zealand just has to accept that they are ‘not there’ anymore in being the ‘envy of the rest world.’
“I look beyond performance as we are a result-orientated nation,” Marshall said on The Breakdown.
“We want to beat everybody and everybody wants to beat us and that is in our DNA that ability to win regardless of the performance.”
This is something that the 51-year-old believes that the Springboks have embraced along with the trait the All Blacks’ teams of old had.
“That’s to a degree what South Africa have discovered at the moment like they don’t know how to lose and that’s a really powerful tool to have in sport, refusing to lose,” he added.
“Good All Blacks teams historically, they don’t accept losing and that’s got to be the benchmark and at the moment we’re just dropping rugby games too often.
“You win and everything takes care of itself, you win World Cups, you win Championships, you win everything and you’re number one in the world.”
“We can’t get ahead of the game”
Show host, Kirstie Stanway raised the question as to whether New Zealand Rugby as a whole is judged on the performances of the All Blacks, with the Black Ferns and Sevens teams have a winning culture.
“I think there’s an element of that, Marshall mentioned three letters there DNA and I think for us in New Zealand Rugby we’re in this position right now where the game is challenging us in certain ways teams are giving us difficulty,” Wilson replied.
“I felt we had that from 2003 to 2011, where the game didn’t suit the All Blacks. It got very confrontational, England were very, very good obviously – The Springboks won in 2007 and I start thinking about what is our DNA. Is our DNA shifting? What’s our competitive advantage as a rugby nation and are we providing the players and the coaches the best opportunities to be successful?
“I’m talking about New Zealand Rugby here because if you start looking at our history we’re not winning World Rugby under 20 titles, we are not winning Rugby World Cups, we’re under pressure when we’re up against the top sides, we’ve lost series in New Zealand for the first time, we’ve lost to Argentina at home for the first time – this balance of power and yes our record overall in terms of percentages it looks quite good.
“The Black Ferns have won two Rugby World Cups in 17 and 21 but as a whole, I’m going to what is our DNA, I’ve always believed that we’re 1 to 23 as a team, the way that we play 1 to 15 on the field we use a certain skill set are we doing and playing to that or are we chasing everybody else and we can’t get ahead of the game and that’s not good enough for us given the way we’ve played the game in the past.”
People used to fear coming to New Zealand
Mils Muliaina added: “I think the landscape has changed a heck of a lot, I think our development with the players coming through… I don’t think we’ve ever got to a stage where we’re reacting, we’ve never done that we’ve sort of evolved…we used to dominate and unfortunately, right now, the landscape has changed because we are being reactive as opposed to being innovative.”
Meanwhile, Marshall believes that the shift in world dominance means that opposition teams no longer fear the All Blacks and fronting up against sides in New Zealand, something which is incredibly difficult to reinstate.
“People used to fear coming to New Zealand to play against any of our teams but we’ve lost that mojo and teams are starting to come here and win regularly, teams that historically have never been able to do it,” he added.
“Ireland, Argentina and the Lions series was drawn here, there is no longer that fear in the players’ minds that New Zealand are impossible to beat at home that was a powerful thing that the All Blacks used to carry but that’s dissipated.
“They [visiting teams] don’t have that baggage anymore. I think what you need to do is make it impenetrable force again. That’s the challenge isn’t it how do you create that DNA that gives New Zealand back that ability to put the fear of God in the opponents because they know that it’s near-on impossible to beat the All Blacks at home?”
READ MORE: Jeff Wilson’s audacious claim about current All Blacks compared to when he started out
