WORLD CUP WARM-UP:ZINZAN BROOKE and Declan Kidney were in the same orbit yesterday and evidently reading from different scripts.
The former All Black number eight, possibly their best, feels Ireland need to beat Scotland this weekend as a matter of World Cup importance. Kidney rolled out a team full of promise and talent, but far from a hard-nosed fleet of front liners.
“Scotland on Sunday. That’s very important,” says Brooke. “It’s crucial for you guys to win that game. Scotland will know that you need to deliver. That’s the first marker.
“They key thing is to keep that momentum going. I don’t think you need a vintage performance. Don’t try too many risky things. Set-piece, run, pass, kick it. A boring game.”
Different thinking indeed. The Kiwi, who now runs a bed and breakfast near Legoland in England, has never been one for dovetailing with convention.
Even his penchant for drop kicking was at odds with the All Black pure vision of rugby, as a piece in this week's New Zealand Heraldexplored. It compared the drop kick to "the unwanted drunken uncle at the family wedding".
The GAA-playing backrow dropped one of the most memorable goals ever seen in the 1995 World Cup two paces inside the England half. Time spent playing with Roskill Rangers in the Auckland GAA League and later St Brendan’s in London allowed him kick off either foot throughout his 58 Tests for the All Blacks.
“It doesn’t say in the rugby manual that backs are the only ones that kick a ball,” says the 6ft 3in backrow. “I think we coach it out of kids now. They are not allowed to do it when they’re doing tag and they’re not allowed kick it in junior rugby. I just find that crazy.”
The GAA connection arrived through his friend, Bernie McCahill, who brought him along to the Maorist club in Auckland and popped the question. “He said to me ‘do you want to play Gaelic?’ I said ‘I never heard of it, what’s that?’ He said ‘it’s this Irish game.’ I got hooked on it straight away. It was just the freedom. I could kick left and right. I played it the off-season. I never told the All Black selectors. I should never have been playing.”
Three World Cups between 1987 and 1995 as well as an enduring status as a number eight with the running and kicking skills of a back-line player, Brooke is encouraging about Jamie Heaslip (“a magnificent athlete”) but sees this year’s World Cup falling the way of New Zealand. He believes Graham Henry has corrected past errors of analysis and selection policy.
“The two mistakes we did were we didn’t analyse the pools and we stuck with the rotation. At the quarter-finals other teams were actually a lot more physical.
“We’ve got to stick with the nucleus of a team, 10, 11, 12, 13 players to hold the team through the pool rounds. I think they will play their World Cup final team against France. They’ll need to.”
You’d would wonder where Ireland will play their World Cup final team.
The tragic wash of the earthquake in Christchurch may also give New Zealand a freight of its own as it will when the USA plays Ireland on 9/11 in New Plymouth. Ireland, Brooke believes, can do well but when it comes to the scrum the great man falters in his flattery. “The question for me is the tight five,” he says. “The tight five must set a platform. It’s the frontrow you need to . . . they are going to be put to the test. Yeah, they’ll be put to the test.”
