Occasionally you play a game where everything goes the oppositionâs way and nothing goes yours, and that was certainly the case in Albany. At the same time, the All Blacks were ruthlessly efficient at turning lucky breaks into points. And like a batsman who can score all around the wicket, they accumulated points almost without you noticing, so that youâd look up at the scoreboard and think, How the hell did that happen?
They werenât necessarily spectacular (although they did score a few outstanding tries), they just made the most of every scoring opportunity. And the more we felt the game slipping away from us, the more desperate we became, and suddenly we were doing things we didnât normally do â running everything, trying risky passes and offloads, making more and more mistakes. And instead of the mistakes being in their half, they were in our half and the All Blacks gleefully seized on them. In the end, the only sensible option was to batten down the hatches and hope it didnât get too ugly and humiliating. But we left it too late.