After having such an extraordinary year in 2005, I finally felt I belonged on the world stage. I was determined to prove it was no fluke — to back it up with another strong year. The Crusaders’ Super Rugby campaign went brilliantly, with us losing only once on the way to the playoffs, ensuring we’d be at Jade Stadium throughout. We took care of the Bulls comfortably in the semi, before winning a second consecutive title in a tense game over a very strong Hurricanes team. The game will forever be remembered as the match in the mist. The strange, thick sea fog rolled in about an hour before kick-off and just as mysteriously vanished not long after the game. How I managed to put the ball between the posts that night is beyond me.
When the All Blacks assembled we approached the games knowing it was our last full season ahead of the World Cup. We’d deliberately scheduled a pair of games against France at the end of the season, knowing the trouble we’d had with them in the past, and that they’d be hosting the tournament and final. We were taking those games very seriously and, to a certain extent, treating the Tri-Nations as a build-up to both the northern tour, and the World Cup the following year.
One of my clearest memories from that year is a kick up in Pretoria, on the Highveld. We had a penalty on halftime, well inside our half. I was shaping to kick it into touch to end the half when Luke McAlister, who was playing outside me, said, ‘Have a shot!’ I looked down field. It was 62 metres, on the angle, and my first instinct was ‘bugger that’. But as it was halftime I decided to give it a crack. The crowd were chatting and laughing, thinking there was no chance. But I gave it a heave and over it went — the longest kick of my career.
The following week’s game was at Rustenburg, so we stayed at Sun City, which is a beautiful place. While we’d already won the Tri-Nations by that point, there was another incentive for the game: the record for most consecutive test wins. We’d won 15 on the trot — the record stood at 17 — and we were in pretty incredible form. But instead of embracing the challenge it represented, and the opportunity to make history, we never mentioned it at all. It was like we shied away from it, not just in public, but as a team.
Today’s All Blacks would never operate like that. We actively seek huge challenges, and embrace the chance to break records. It’s an evolution in our mindset, to try and be the best team in any sport on the planet. To be that we’ll have to work incredibly hard. Records and World Cups are hard marks to achieve, and don’t come along every couple of years. To break them or win them you have to do something extraordinary, and not treat them like they’re just another game.
In 2006 we didn’t even discuss the record, and had a relaxed week in the sun heading into the final game. Somehow it became a holiday. We were staying at an amazing resort, and playing at a fairly ordinary venue, out of the city. And because the Tri-Nations was already taken care of, subconsciously we lost focus. Our training and preparation suffered, and we enjoyed all the comforts of the resort in a way we never would have had the series been on the line. We were playing golf, hitting the casino and spending a lot of time by the pool. None of which is bad in isolation. But to do all that without a focus tends to let your mind drift.
The game ended up being very close. We were leading for much of the way, but they seemed to sense we were there for the taking, and sent wave after wave at us. We still had the lead until the final moment when Rodney So’oialo gave away a penalty, which handed the game to them. He was hurting afterwards, but we should never have got into that kind of position.
The end-of-year-tour provided redemption, in a series of fairly comprehensive victories, including an emphatic 47–3 defeat of France. But the frustration of the Rustenburg loss lingered, and still aggravates me to this day.
Still, it was ultimately a blip in an otherwise dominant season.
That summer I couldn’t have been in better shape, physically or mentally. The previous couple of years had seen me grow from a fringe All Black to owning my position, and I felt in peak condition as we headed into a World Cup year. While during the previous tournament I was making up the numbers, and watched in a slightly detached way as our tournament fell apart, this time I felt like this was my team. I had immense confidence in our set-up, from coaches to training staff to players. Most of all, I had confidence in myself — I was in form, in shape, and at the perfect point in my career arc. This was my time to shine, my moment, a chance to prove myself not on a world stage — I felt I’d done that — but at a unique and special tournament.
As the year began, you could feel both the hum of anticipation but also apprehension from the public. We had lost four World Cups in a row, so both media and the public worried about how that would affect the team. Personally, I didn’t feel a huge amount of pressure based on our run of poor performances at the tournament. To the public that might seem odd, given how distant 1987 was. But the majority of our team had played in one World Cup, if that, and we didn’t feel like we were responsible for the failures in prior tournaments. Which is a good thing, because there’s pressure enough at a World Cup without weighing the losses of your predecessors, too.
Despite that, I knew this year, and this tournament, was different. As a result, I made the decision at the start of the year to try to push on into new realms of conditioning and focus. Part of that involved giving up drinking, to try to become the complete professional athlete. And, apart from a couple of beers after the Super Rugby final, I kept to it. My thinking was that it would help me reach a new level, take away a distraction and build me up into a rugby machine. In time, I would learn that humans don’t respond well to being treated like machines. But, as 2007 began, I felt great about the decision.
This was the year of the now infamous ‘conditioning window’. So instead of starting Super Rugby training with the Crusaders, the other Canterbury All Blacks and I were conditioning separately. It felt strange, to be physically separated from your teammates, as they worked towards a goal we all shared, but the strategy sounded solid, so we didn’t question it. I barely touched a rugby ball at first. Instead there were long gym sessions, with lots of fitness and speed work. I was feeling fantastic physically, and agreed with the principles which were driving this different approach. It was a very long season, so it seemed logical to build slowly and deliberately.
When we finally integrated with the Crusaders in late March, though, something was missing. By then the season was more than a month old, and the wider group had been training for four months. The usual feeling of unity and purpose was absent, and there was a bit of an us-and-them sense within the camp. It was a really weird dynamic, the strangest I would ever encounter in the normally rock-solid Crusaders environment. But because I was feeling good, and focused on the big prize at the end of the year, I didn’t give it too much thought. I look back and shudder a bit, because that’s so far from where I like to be as a Crusader and a teammate.
Despite the disjointed dynamics, we scraped through to the semis, in our usual style. Once there we faced the Bulls in Pretoria. It’s a real cauldron up there, and you can only give yourself a shot if you’re entirely committed. We weren’t, and they exposed us. It bothers me still, because we’d come off two consecutive wins with essentially the same team, and we had a terrific chance to emulate the great Crusaders side of the late ’90s and win three consecutive Super Rugby titles. That would have been a real milestone for our team. But even when we lost I wasn’t too fussed. Subconsciously I wasn’t as engaged with the Crusaders campaign. I was just waiting to get into camp with the All Blacks.
There was a similar motivational issue with the Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe. Winning them had become a bit routine, and coupled with the immense anticipation for the World Cup it really felt like no one cared too much: from our opponents, to our coaches to the public. They only really mattered as signposts to where we were headed. The older I get, the more this situation bothers me — when games become routine or diminished.
Especially the Bledisloe. It has a history to it, which the Tri-Nations lacks. I remember the first time I won it, in my debut season as an All Black in ’03. The Aussies had held it for years prior to that victory, and I saw how much it meant to the more senior players, given the number of agonising and dramatic losses we’d experienced in the late ’90s and early 2000s. The Eales penalty. Gregan’s tackle. It’s also an amazing trophy to drink out of, which is a small but tangible part of the motivation. It’s massive, and gets filled up and passed around the changing sheds after we win it.
The Tri-Nations? It’s nice to win, but the years just blend together. We did well despite our ambivalence, only losing to Australia, in front of a huge crowd at the MCG, and closing out with big wins over South Africa and the Aussies. With that over with we flew to Corsica to begin our preparation for the World Cup. The plan was to go somewhere warm, relaxed and secluded to help us get over our jetlag and acclimatise. All the media came and stayed with us, in this beautiful spot, with incredible beaches and perfect weather.
Then something strange and frustrating happened. The media got stuck into us — I never could figure out why. The line seemed to be: ‘Who do these guys think they are?’ The stories were completely outlandish: me wandering round with my shirt off, with a room full of Moët, the team just sunbathing and having a good time. As if we were living a glamorous lifestyle. The intimation was that we weren’t taking the Cup seriously, and were slacking off. When in fact we weren’t training much for medical reasons — because we were getting over jetlag.
It annoyed me, given the amount of thought and care which had gone into the season, but we couldn’t dwell on that. Next we flew to Marseille and did some promotional work before the tournament started. The best part was a session with the French footballer Zinedine Zidane, then one of the biggest stars in sports. He and I took turns kicking balls at a goal out over the water, which was a pinch yourself moment.
Afterwards there was hilarity during a question-and-answer session Zinedine did with the rest of the All Blacks. The first hand which shot up was that of Sitiveni Sivivatu. His question was a total clanger: ‘How much do you make?’ Zinedine handled it well, to his credit, saying ‘far too much’, or words to that effect. We gave Siti hell for it afterwards.
Then it was into the Cup proper. First up: Italy. We played brilliantly in that win — Richie scored twice in the first 10 minutes, and we put over 70 points on them, for a 76–14 finish. Obviously they’re not a first-tier nation, but they’ve come on a lot over the past decade. Then came Portugal, a game I skipped, but the team took care of them 108–13. The last big game was against Scotland, who were in a pretty deep hole at the time. I returned, and while we played poorly, we still beat them 40–0.
Afterwards we were given a couple of days off to refresh. In a tournament of that length it’s important to not be solely focused on rugby the whole time — you just lose focus and get bored. I was lucky — a group of my high-school mates were touring Europe on the cheap, following the All Blacks. So whenever we’d have a break I’d go and find them, sunning themselves on a beach, and get updated on their stories. So I had a good escape valve.
For the rest of us, the break was a necessary refresher within a long tournament. At the same time, though, it did feel a bit weird to splinter off into different groups rather than doing something as a team. The current All Blacks team would never do that, but I don’t view it as a poor decision. It was, like so much we went through, a learning experience for players and management.
We needed the break. It had been a long season, and we were in the midst of a long tournament. Some guys met up with their partners or had downtime with family, but a group of us decided to go to Monaco. Byron Kelleher knew an ex-Welsh player named Mark Thomas who’d somehow ended up on the Monaco bobsled team. He hooked us up with a house there. It was Byron, Richie, Luke McAlister, Nick Evans, Doug Howlett, Brendon Leonard and myself. We flew out, got tuxedos and had a magic couple of days.
Mark turned out to be really good friends with Prince Albert. He was away, but we hung around with his wife, Princess Caroline, living a crazy lifestyle, surrounded by famous people. We were treated like royalty — probably because we were hanging out with royalty. We went to the casino and were given free chips. They showed us a poker table where the minimum bet was a million euro. I was just in awe of the wealth, but quite self-conscious, too — it was just so far from who I was, and what we were there for. Thinking back on that mad weekend, we were incredibly lucky the media didn’t find out, because it would’ve looked pretty bad. And, if I’m honest, we did get caught up in the moment a bit. At times we probably forgot that we were actually in France for a World Cup.
Following the break, the team reassembled in Aix-en-Provence to prepare for our final pool game against Romania. We knew we had to go to Wales for the quarter-final, but the games beyond there would be in Paris. There was a lot of talk about the last two weeks of the tournament, the logistics of moving to Wales then back again, and so on. That should have been a red flag, that things had been going a little too well for us, and we were starting to make assumptions about how the remaining games would play out.
Worse was to come. In the first training session after the break, I felt my calf go early on, and stopped training immediately. I knew it wasn’t really serious, but I didn’t want to risk it. The following morning it was sore to walk on, so we made the call to pull me out of the Romania game.
I was really unhappy about missing the game. I’d only played an hour or so against Italy, along with a ropey game against Scotland, which meant I was heading into the quarter-final seriously underdone. The calf was slow to come right, and I was kept out of training the whole week leading into the quarter-final. I just watched, and rehabbed and hoped it would come right. It really added to my anxiety, not being able to kick a ball. I was walking through the kicking motion, visualising kicks, which was better than nothing, but certainly not what I wanted heading into such a huge game. Even during the captain’s run I was at half pace. I felt like on balance it would be fine, but that was more hope than confidence.
Game day came. We’d played France twice on the previous northern hemisphere tour. We beat the hell out of them in a sensational performance at Lyon, although they did provide a far sterner test in Paris a week later. Earlier in the ’07 season, France brought a depleted side to New Zealand — the tour clashed with the concluding stages of their Top 14 competition — and we put 100 points on them across two tests.
A few hours before we were due to run out, word filtered out that Australia had lost their quarter-final against England in Marseille. It was extraordinary news, and electrified the team. We couldn’t believe it — we had considered them our biggest competition, yet they’d faltered at the quarter-final. Everything was looking so good.
As soon as we got out there, though, something felt off. The way the French advanced on us during the haka definitely caught us by surprise, and the first half was much more of a grind than we had expected. We were up at the break, and not playing too badly, but it was a closer game than we’d have liked, and they were a very different team to the one we’d been beating so comfortably over the past year.
It wasn’t long after the half that I felt my calf give out. I could barely walk on it, let alone run. I knew in my heart that it was probably the end of my World Cup. I limped off and told our medical staff it had gone. Not long after there was a picture of me taken which was printed everywhere, looking utterly broken. It accurately summed up my feelings at the time. I just had nothing left. There were a couple of factors playing into that. One was that I knew the injury was serious enough to have me out of the tournament. The second was the game itself. Things were deteriorating before my eyes.
We weren’t playing the game we’d practised. The French had grown an arm and a leg, and the crowd was rising behind them. Nick Evans limped off with about 10 minutes to go, so we were down to Luke McAlister, a third-choice first-five, without much experience running the team. We hadn’t selected Doug Howlett or Aaron Mauger, two guys who’d been stalwarts of the side for years. I understood why ahead of the game, but as it tightened up towards the end I wished we’d had more cool-headed experience out there.
Even with 20 minutes to go I felt like there was an inevitability about the result. My dream, the one I’d worked so hard for, made so many sacrifices for, was disintegrating in front of me, both on a personal and a team level. When Yannick Jauzion scored with just under 10 minutes on the clock, making the score 20–18 to France, a feeling of dread started to rise within me. I think I already knew the game was gone. And so it proved.
After the final whistle blew we assembled in one of the bleakest dressing-rooms of my career. We’d lost in the quarter-final of a tournament we were heavily favoured to win. It was only natural that there’d be anger and despair, manifesting itself in different ways throughout the squad. I retreated into myself, feeling blank incomprehension.
I got quiet and distant, unable to process the situation. After a while we bussed back to our hotel. We were staying at a golf resort, out of the city. By this stage everyone was drinking, and starting to let it all out. I didn’t want any part of that — I got off the bus and headed straight to my room. I just didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t sleep, of course, and didn’t try. I literally sat and stared at the ceiling for three straight hours, cursing my injury and trying to figure out what on earth had happened.
At 5 am I had a knock at my door. It was Ali Williams and Chris Masoe. They said what I needed to hear, which was to pull my head in, that I wasn’t achieving anything by sitting up here and feeling sorry for myself. They were right, of course. At first I wouldn’t give in; told them to piss off and leave me alone. But they wouldn’t take no for an answer, and insisted I come and socialise with the team.
Eventually I grumpily agreed. Downstairs it was chaos. Everyone was letting their hair down, all responding differently to the stress. There were guys in tears, having heart-to-hearts. Other guys had guitars out or were singing, looking like they were having a good time. Most of the guys were very emotional. It was a pretty highly charged scene. Still, as messed up as it was, I was glad I joined them. It’s important a team stays together, win or lose, and there was some small comfort to be around my teammates.
The hardest thing was having to spend another night in Cardiff before we could figure out what to do next. No one had planned for this, even at a contingency level. We were meant to be on a plane to Paris, not heading home to New Zealand. So management were scrambling to organise flights and connections. Ideally we’d have gone home in one group, but that proved impossible given the size of the touring party.
It meant we had another big night in Cardiff. This became an open session in the conference room, during which anyone could say whatever they wanted without recrimination. A lot came out. Some guys were extremely despondent, others almost defiant in the face of it all: ‘I don’t want to be in any other circle than this one here’ was a common sentiment. It was particularly poignant knowing that a number of guys had likely played their last game for the team.
Then we all got on a bus to London. I had been sober all year, remember, so was really feeling the hangover. Looking back now, I think it was a mistake to give up the booze for the year, odd as that sounds. It became ‘rugby, rugby, rugby’, when, instead, as athletes and people we need the opportunity to kick back and let our minds go elsewhere. Everyone’s different, and while having a couple of beers helps me relax, it doesn’t work for others. But my abstinence meant that when the pressure really went on, the game felt like the only thing that mattered. That mentality didn’t do me any good — if the game’s all that matters, how do you reconcile that with a loss?
When we got to London we started to go our separate ways. I was lucky to make it onto the first plane back. The second group stayed on, and ended up getting into a bit of trouble. They combined with the Aussies, who were staying at the same hotel and feeling the same way. It got a little toxic, predictably. Luckily for me, by then I was on a plane, and mentally preparing for the reaction of the press and the public.
The worst part was that as I was flying out, my family was flying in. Mum, Dad and my sister had planned to come for the semi and the final. They were up in the air when it happened, and had no choice but to continue with the trip. They ended up having a couple of weeks in Paris, and had an alright time. But Dad sold his tickets, and I missed catching up with my sister, who I hadn’t seen for a few years, as she’d been living in Canada.
Before the World Cup I’d joked that if we didn’t win, I wasn’t coming home. I said I’d grow a beard and become a fisherman in the south of France. Then we lost in the quarter-final! I sat on the plane and it was all I could think about, how awful it would be to confront the public. I flew home via Tokyo, to Christchurch. When I came through the gates, the airport was packed with people. I braced myself for the onslaught. They had a right to be angry, and I expected to get it in the neck. I could live with that — we had let them down on the biggest stage.
It never came. Instead people were slapping me on the back. You could see they were hurting, just like we were. But they were there to show their support and loyalty, even at that darkest hour. It was unbelievable, and gives me goose bumps to this day, just thinking about it.
There was some negative stuff, mostly in the media. But over the weeks to come I was consistently surprised and gratified by the reaction of our supporters. The comments were incredible. ‘Thanks for the last three years’; ‘I can’t imagine how you guys are feeling right now’; ‘Hard luck — we’re feeling for you’. It took a good month to get out of the black hole the loss put us in. But it would’ve been a lot longer if it wasn’t for the support of our fans.