After watching the second half of the All Blacks v South Africa match, it was plain for anyone to see that the AB’s were far fitter than the Springboks. This fitness of course came as a result of the conditioning programme the players were put through at the beginning of this year.
The theory is that when the Rugby World Cup rolls round, our fitness will be an advantage over other teams. After failing at several world cups I guess it’s natural that Graham Henry wants to cover all his bases.
After the AB’s victory many people were singing the praises of the fitness conditioning programme.
But will being fitter than all the other teams really help us win?
I’m reminded of a 2004 article from the Sydney Morning Herald. It was a preview of a weekend of NRL semi finals. The interesting bit was at the end, when it talked about the 2003 end of season Kangaroos tour to the UK (bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this)
In 2003 the Penrith Panthers won the NRL premiership, but the Panthers that were on the tour to the UK were proven to have inferior fitness levels to the rest of the Kangaroos.
The article quotes trainer Billy Johnstone who says:
He was amazed at the lack of fitness of the Penrith players.
They lagged behind the rest of the squad on almost every drill.
He could not believe a team could win a premiership with so many unfit players.
Ok – you with me still?
In 2003 Penrith got to and won the 2003 NRL grand final despite not being as fit as other teams. It’s worth noting that their opponents that year, the Roosters were generally acknowledged as the fittest team in the NRL.
How did the Panther’s over come lack of fitness? The article suggested it was “youthâ€, and this may well be right. I think it could also have come from having more passion (discounted by the article) playing smarter football or being mentally tougher.
What ever it was, the All Blacks would do well to take note that superior fitness is great, but good opposition teams can find ways to overcome this advantage.
6 comments ↓
I was quite gutted that I missed the All Blacks game last week, though I have more of an interest in the America’s Cup at the moment so until thats over I will prob miss all the next All Blacks games over the next 2 weeks.
Though rugby is quite boring…but I hope we win the world cup!
Like I said, the ABs needed to lose the Bledisloe match to get the Aussie curse out of the system before the WC. Let’s not meet the Aussies as undefeated champions in the WC semi-final, because as usual the Curse of the Choke will take over.
Ian I hope your correct. But the Aussies may be too smart come world cup time. I mean, how awesome were they to take one our biggest strengths (the scrum) and con the ref into penalising us. Sheer genius I reckon. We just looked lost out there - we had no answers to the Aussies tactics.
That leaves us about 9 weeks I think to sort it out. Here’s hoping . . .
I’ll agree with the comments that they are far fitter than other teams around the world but I really don’t think that this is a win or lose point. As we know anything can happen in any game right up until the last horn sounds.
Hey - thanks for the ad.
Cool site! I’ve added it to Ferdy’s Favourites and will be back to check out regularly.
(You’re right about Carter too - he’ll be sweet as).
[...] in these sorts of matches. I wrote a post some time ago warning people not to believe the hype about the All Blacks fitness. I used a rugby league example, where in 2003 when the Penrith Panthers won the NRL title they [...]
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