Back to Blacks: game's top brand in search of its sheen

For New Zealand, these have been weeks of a sort of national nirvana.

- HARRY LATHAM-COYLE

A country so used to punching above its weight on the sporting field has seldom seen such success. Last month, the nation's female cricketing White Ferns won the T20 World Cup for the first time just days before their male counterparts secured a first Test series win in India. In Barcelona, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron dominated Ben Ainslie’s Brits to hold on to the America’s Cup; it is a Kiwi in Chris Wood that is powering Nottingham Forest up the Premier League.

So you’d forgive the All Blacks, New Zealand’s highest-profile sporting export, for feeling a little extra pressure as they begin a demanding European tour with a tango in Twickenham this afternoon.

“You look on extremely proudly when you see the country at the bottom of the world punching like that,” Scott Robertson, the New Zealand head coach, said on Thursday. “I just think it shows our fighting spirit. We draw on it, we’re aware of it, we celebrate it as well. It’s something that will inspire us.”

The problem for Robertson’s men is that this has been far from a vintage year for a side so used to being their country’s standard-bearer. Twelve months and one week ago, the All Blacks lost a World Cup final by the barest of margins, the curtain brought down on the Ian Foster era with a flash of red and bowed heads of disappointment.

The hope was that the all-singing, all-breakdancing “Razor” Robertson would inject extra energy and fun back into a brand beginning to lose its sheen. Having built a Christchurch dynasty with the Crusaders, his credentials were impeccable; while the July series win over England was not without problems, it represented a solid start to life in a role where success is a prerequisite.