All Black whinging unbecoming of a great side

If there is one thing the All Blacks have always been good at, it is the art of deflection.

Whether it was sidestepping their former captain Richie McCaw’s effortlessly flaunting breakdown laws - he was an exceptional player who got away with a lot - to getting away with strings of penalties in their own 22.

They have made an art of it.

Their mantra has always been - we get on with the game and don’t listen to the noise going on around us.

But this week something changed.

Yes, we know Ian Foster is a “dead man walking” - to coin some of their media - and yes they are under immense pressure after losing five out of their last six tests.

Foster has come under fire - not only for his bizarre comments that the All Blacks played their best game in Mbombela the entire year.

But this week they have tried to turn the attention to Kurt-Lee Arendse’s poor aerial attempt that left both him and Beauden Barrett leave the field after the horror clash.

No South African fan, pundit or anyone watching the game from these parts has defended Arendse. The team even said - politely - he got his timing wrong.

The referee saw red - rightly so - and the judicial committee gave Arendse four weeks. It was deserved and he was a bit lucky not to get more.

It was at best clumsy, at worse negligent and it was dealt with. End of story.

On Sunday though, Foster came out firing, trying to claim victimhood in an arena where he needed something to cling to. So he took aim at Arendse.

“One of the worst I’ve ever seen”, he bellowed and said the All Blacks needed “more protection” in the air.

This after they won just six of the 16 aerial battles during the game. There were no other incidents even close to what happened in the 77th minute, and none warranting such an outcry. Yet here we are.

Foster vowed to take the matter up with World Rugby and even sent Beauden Barrett out on Wednesday to front up in an interview and talk about how scared he was. Fair enough, it was a bad incident, and player welfare is always important.

But the timing, along with the way the All Blacks have played it, has come across cynical, as if they want to influence referee Luke Pearce with their whinge. As if they want to deflect from their own failings by placing the spotlight on the Boks.

The aerial challenge is a part of modern rugby and most teams know it is coming when playing the Boks. In fact, normally the All Blacks use the tactic more than the Boks in these clashes, but they were outgunned in Mbombela.

Still, when you think back to some of the All Black sides who have had controversy, who have shrugged and told their players to get on with it, the noise being made by Foster smacks of a desperate side looking for desperate measures to deflect from their own shortcomings.

After all, it was the same Foster who denied the All Blacks had a problem when Jordie Barrett was rightfully red carded for a “kung-fu kick” in the Bledisloe Cup test in Perth last year.

At the time, this was Foster’s reaction to the red card - surprise.

“I’m pretty surprised, to be honest,” Foster replied when asked about the incident. “We’ll go and have a good look at it, but certainly we’ll probably be putting a bit of a case together for that one.”

Foster denied there were issues with Barrett’s technique in the incident.

“It’s a long bow to go to a major problem for one thing that just happened once,” he said. “He just lost balance and you could see he tilted, and you could see what happened.

“I feel for the refs in situations like this. Technically they saw things and they make their decisions. I get all that. Now we’ve got a chance to sit down and analyse it, we’ll have a good couple of conversations.

“But have we got a technique problem? No we haven’t.”

Fast forward to this week and you’d be right for seeing the irony in the whinging.

SA Rugby’s Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus, perhaps a bit miffed at this, retweeted Barrett’s interview and said rather sarcastically he hoped Barrett would “recover from this traumatic experience.”

“Spot on! An area of the game that requires courage and technique, and as you say injuries are part of the contest. We hope you get well soon and recover from this traumatic experience,” Erasmus tweeted.

Spot on! An area of the game that requires courage and technique, and as you say injuries are part of the contest. We hope you get well soon and recover from this traumatic experience. pic.twitter.com/A5Be2ougVR

— Rassie Erasmus (@RassieRugby) August 10, 2022

What Foster didn’t mention, and what the Boks could easily have complained about, are the blocking lines run by multiple players in their teams to try and put off chasers. An argument can be made that this - in all games - leads to the aerial contest being more dangerous, as players have to evade obstacles in their path while keeping their eyes on the ball.

It's something that is a blight on the game and all teams do it, but the All Blacks on Saturday did this multiple times which wasn’t picked up by the ref.

The bottom line though is, the All Black brand deserves better. They have been admired across the world for their style of play and success. The victimhood mentality doesn’t suit them and doesn’t suit the brand.

We, as South Africans, often are faulted for complaining and are accused of playing victims. We have to get better as a rugby nation when things don’t go our way.

But it was surprising to see the All Blacks so desperate to play this card this week. They should follow their own mantra and “just get on with it.”