So here it is, the greatest New Zealand All Blacks team since 1990:

15.       Jeff Wilson

The dual international (cricket) played most of his 60 test matches on the wing but was equally at home at fullback. The Otago and Highlanders player scored two tries on debut in 1993 versus Scotland at Murrayfield.

14.       John Kirwan

Making his debut at the age of 19, Kirwan scored arguably the greatest try of all time when he beat multiple Italian defenders to score a brilliant length of the field try in the All Blacks first game of its triumphant 1987 World Cup. He played 96 times for the All Blacks including 63 tests.

13.       Frank Bunce

One of the toughest centres in world rugby at the time, he was a renowned distributor, able to set up his outsides for tries. He was an unusual debutant as he was aged 30 at the time of his call up. He went on to play 69 matches for the All Blacks including 55 test matches.

12.       Tana Umaga

More suited at centre, Umaga made his debut on the wing for the All Blacks and played 74 test matches, 21 as captain. He was regarded as an inspirational leader by his fellow players and coaches. With the emergence of Conrad Smith at centre, Umaga moved into second five-eighth for both the Wellington Hurricanes and the All Blacks. He captained the side for its historical clean sweep of the British and Irish Lions in 2005 and the Grand Slam tour the same year.

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11.       Jonah Lomu

New Zealand and rugby’s first global superstar, Jonah Lomu burst onto the international scene as a fresh faced 19 year old 116kg monster winger at the 1995 world cup in South Africa where he scored six tries to led the tournament including the infamous try in which he literally ran over the top of English fullback Mike Catt. He was named the 1995 rugby world cup player of the tournament. Lomu also scored the winning try in what crictics describe as the greatest test match of all time in Sydney, Australia in 2000.

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10.       Andrew Mehrtens

New Zealand rugby’s greatest ever point scorer with 967 points, South African born Mehrtens could kick goals from virtually anywhere on the park. He controlled the game superbly well for both the Canterbury Crusaders and the All Blacks. Merhtens had the chance to win the 1995 world cup for the All Blacks against South Africa with an attempted drop goal in extra time which subsequently missed leaving New Zealand as the runner up.

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9.         Justin Marshall

Marshall played 89 test matches for the All Blacks between 1995 and 2005 where he captained the side in 4 tests. He scored 140 points for the All Blacks and is the most capped All Blacks halfback in history.

8.         Wayne Shelford

Nicknamed “Buck”, Wayne Shelford was arguably the most bruising and competitive No. 8 the All Blacks had seen when he played his 22 tests for the All Blacks between 1986 and 1990. He was an inspirational captain in 14 of his 22 tests before he was controversially dropped in 1990 when displaying some of his best form. Myths and legends circulated Shelford including why he was dropped from the All Blacks and according to some it was because he punched first five-eighth at the time Grant Fox after a match. Another legend says that Shelford was rucked in the groin region subsequently having to retrieve a testicle from his underwear. He carried on playing the match!

7.         Richard McCaw

The current All Blacks captain is said to be the best player in world rugby and has played over 70 test matches for the New Zealand side. He was named the IRB world player of the year in 2006.

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6.         Zinzan Brooke

Remembered as a No. 8 but an equally good blindside flanker, “Zinny” was famous for having all the skills of a back and proved that when he dropped a goal from 50 metres against England in the 1995 world cup in South Africa. He played 58 test matches.

5.         Chris Jack

Currently playing for English club Saracens, Jack played 67 tests for the All Blacks at lock and recently resigned with the New Zealand Rugby Union until 2011 with an eye to winning the 2011 world cup being held in New Zealand.

4.         Ian Jones

“The Kamo Kid” Ian Jones is New Zealand’s greatest ever lock forward behind the ageless Colin “Pinetree” Meads in which he played 79 tests for the All Blacks. He and fellow All Black lock Robin Brooke formed a formidable pair in the mid 90’s both pre and post line out lifting. Jones can now be seen as a commentator for New Zealand’s Sky Sports covering most All Blacks matches.

3.         Olo Brown

The quiet assassin, Olo Brown was hailed by opposition props as an excellent scrummager with fantastic technique and strength. He played 56 tests for the All Blacks only missing two matches in his entire career.

2.         Sean Fitzpatrick

New Zealand’s greatest ever All Blacks captain, “Fitzy” played 92 tests at hooker and was famously caught up in one of the games first ever ear biting incidents when South Africa’s Ollie Le Roux left Fitzpatrick without a piece of his right ear. Fitzpatrick was famous for his battles with Australian opposite Phil Kearns. The two often had “words”.

1.         Carl Hayman

Carl Hayman is unusually tall for a prop at 6 ft 4in but that was his greatest asset when he scrimmaged. He played in 46 test matches before leaving for a lucrative deal with English club Newcastle. He is regarded as the best tighthead prop in world rugby.

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Reserves: 

Anton Oliver, Craig Dowd, Robin Brooke, Michael Jones, Grant Fox, Daniel Carter, Joe Stanley

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Coach:

Laurie Mains

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You see I used to play rugby; at least that is what my team mates and I called it. To some it was ‘rugger’ but that was a little snooty for the likes of us. No, we played rugby. For thirty years since I was eight years old I, and many like me, spent many an afternoon with my head stuffed under another man’s sweaty armpit whilst a huge, 18 stone giant would hang from the crotch of my shorts with his shoulder up my rectum. I was a front row forward and the game that I played and the men that I played with, far from exciting the amatory fantasies of a Mills & Boon reader were much more likely to have featured in her worst nightmare.

To learn that rugby players are now deemed to be an object of desire for the fluttering hearts of the nation’s more impressionable women is final proof that the game we loved all those years back is now gone forever. The modern version, with its new rules preventing boring in the scrum, allowing lifting in the line out and reducing the ruck and the maul to mere vestiges of their former selves calls only for light fast playmakers. Today even an amateur rugby team looks like a bunch of soccer posers in garish coloured jerseys. The onset of professionalism requires a much higher level of fitness and stamina and its practitioners have to be honed athletes who fill their skin tight tunics to perfection hence their emergence as subjects for erotic fiction. In our day the true ethos of rugby was its ability to involve everybody whatever their shape and size.

Huge lanky bean poles, a hazard to navigation anywhere else in life became line out experts. Stunted little men, warped by inferiority complexes, discovered that they made ideal scrum halves whilst deformed simians, shunned by society and told to go and find a bell rope to climb became hookers. Even I, seasoned player that I was, would sometimes shudder at the sheer repellent ugliness of some of my opponents. Beer guts, broken noses, cauliflowered ears and scars a German Junkers would have been proud of were essential features, campaign medals of a lifetime of sticking their heads into the maelstrom of fists, boots and knees of the scrum and then celebrating mightily afterwards.

Indeed the uglier the player, the better he seemed to be. When I think back to the likes of Stack Stevens, Billy Beamont, Gordon Brown, Barry McGann and the physiognomical nightmare that was the Pontypool Front Row, none of them could be described as romantic heroes to fire a shrinking violet to a frenzy of sensual desire but they could play rugby and play it with a pace, a fire and a passion that seems to be absent these days.

Mills & Boon heroes tend to be solitary individuals, marked out from their peers by their superb looks and individuality. That is what makes them so attractive to women whereas the gentlemen listed above eschewed individual fame and glory and instead devoted themselves to the success of the team.

This team ethic meant that rugby in the seventies and eighties was almost entirely devoid of any female interest at all. Wives and girlfriends were banned from many club houses, and all away match coaches and rugby tours. Those that turned up to watch were usually relegated to standing disconsolately on the touchline in the freezing rain to be handed their man’s kit bag at the end of the game with the exhortation to have it washed for next week whilst he would head off to join the team in the bar. The team was the young man’s family and playing for it was a rite of passage. Eventually marriage, children and middle age meant the boots were hung up but until then, like the Spartan in the  Agoge, he had a close knit male environment in which to learn and develop.

Opportunities for that sort of sponsored masculine tutelage seems to have all but disappeared these days and more is the pity. Many mourn the lack of positive male role models and rugby used to provide them in fifteens. It taught discipline and deference. The referee was always addressed as ‘Sir’ even if he was blind and partial. Dress codes were strict: blazers and ties on the coach, socks suspended on the pitch, dinner jackets at the club dinner, your girl friend’s bra and panties in the conga line.

Whatever the violence on the field the opposition were always welcomed into the club house and bought a jug of beer and a plate of pie and beans and the crowds were always generous and good humoured. It was a great way to grow up and I very much regret that it has passed into history and that my son will never be able to experience it in the way that I did.

Reading the book will be no substitute at all.  

1991

The All Blacks had dominated world rugby up to this point until eventually losing to the Wallabies in Wellington, 21-9. It was their first defeat since 1986.

The 1991 World Cup placed the All Blacks up against Australia in the semi-final at Landsdowne Road in Dublin. Eighty minutes later, it ended in disappointment. A David Campese try, denting the defending champion’s chances, losing 16-6.

1995

The 1995 World Cup was played in South Africa for the first time. The All Blacks advanced to the semi-finals to meet England. An outstanding individual performance by winger Jonah Lomu gained a 45 – 29 victory and entry to the final against the host nation at Ellis Park, Johannesburg.

Three years of strenuous preparation, was to end in tatters. Andrew Mehrtens missed a vital drop goal three minutes from full-time, the scores locked at 9-9. Twelve minutes later, South African first five, Joel Stransky kicked the drop goal to deny the All Blacks glory. A 15 – 12 South African victory and the host nation celebrating.

1999

Being dethroned of the Bledisloe Cup the year before, the All Blacks went into the tournament with average form.

Some sloppy performances lead them to a semi-final clash with France in London. With the All Blacks well ahead, France came back to score 33 unanswered points within 28 minutes, to shock the favorites 43-31. An early flight home and team moral hitting an all time low.

2003

Demolishing Italy 70-7 in their opening match in Melbourne, everything looked on track for the All Blacks. A 29 – 9 quarter-final thrashing of South Africa set the scene for a semi final clash with the Wallabies. However, rugby can be a cruel sport, beaten 22 – 10 in Sydney. Australian halfback George Gregan mutted, “Four more years” to add insult to injury.

2007

The weight of expectation followed. The All Blacks were expected to win the Rugby World Cup, once and for all. After thrashing Italy, Portugal, Scotland and Romania in pool play, an unexpected upset with France losing to Argentina, set the All Blacks to play the French in a quarter-final in Cardiff.

The All Blacks lead 13-3 and looked in control but controversy followed. Luke McAlister was sin binned for an objectionable late charge, leaving them down to 14 men. The French came back to level 13-13, with a try to flanker Thierry Dasatoir. Rodney So’oialo crossed over to put the All Blacks back in front 18-13.

In the final ten minutes the All Blacks hopes of victory crashed. Referee Wayne Barnes missing a suspected forward pass, Yannick Jauzion running away to score and put France through to the semi-finals and the defeat sending the All Blacks home in shock for the fifth time.

That leaves the All Blacks with yet another four years of immense preparation. The question is: What can we do to win our own tournament in 2011?