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Monday 1st December 2008 Make us your HOME PAGE  What is RSS?
 

RUGBY UNION

ANDREW AND HIS BIG CUP 'OBSESSION'

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Rob Andrew: Looking to the future

Tuesday June 10,2008

By Steve Bale

The England who are here in New Zealand are about to become unrecognisable from the England of Brian Ashton.

So much was made clear by Rob Andrew yesterday as he contemplated selection for Saturday’s first Test against New Zealand at Eden Park, which he said had been virtually decided before he left England.

Andrew, the tour manager before Martin Johnson becomes England’s official team manager in three weeks, noted his team bore virtually no resemblance to that which reached last year’s World Cup final under Ashton.

Andrew says this rapid turnover is the product of an attempt to set England on the road to the New Zealand 2011 World Cup right now while they have their final pre-tournament opportunity to play in the host country. Andrew himself only ever played here for the Lions.

“More than anything, we have to focus on what we want to do with a group of players, the majority of whom we believe will be around in 2011,” said Andrew. “This is the only time we will come to New Zealand before the World Cup. Take the injuries out and therefore the players who couldn’t be here, and a lot of the selections have been made on that basis.

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More than anything, we have to focus on what we want to do with a group of players
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Rob Andrew


“You have to look at what is immediately in front of you, the detail of this Test match in Auckland, but we also have to start the journey towards the next World Cup.”

It is notoriously difficult and fraught with danger trying to marry short-term and long-term objectives in this way. Sir Clive Woodward did it by the simple expedient of bothering about the next match, which Johnson’s World Cup winners usually won.

But the squad Johnson will soon be managing are callow by comparison with the 2003 champions and even the 2007 finalists, and the notion of setting out with these players in this of all countries at this time has more basis in optimism than realism. Surely a New Zealand-England Test is enough by itself? 
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“There’s no doubt England were rescued by the players of 2003 who were left over in 2007,” said Andrew. “That isn’t going to happen in 2011. There will be a new England team around.

“We shouldn’t lose focus on each Test match that comes along. But you will always, when planning and managing, look at the short and long term. 

“For some of these guys this may be the only time they play for England in a Test match in New Zealand. I never played one in New Zealand in the whole of my career. So it’s a one-off and we need to look at it that way.”

Rugby’s fixation on its World Cup, with the four-year cycle the tournament has created, has proved unhealthier to New Zealanders than anyone but has now been ingrained by the IRB’s new seeding system.

Using this December’s IRB rankings, the top four will be kept apart, with numbers five to eight in a second band avoiding each other but liable to be thrown into a pool with the All Blacks or Springboks.

England stand fifth and need their results over the next fortnight and in November to be good enough not for their own sake but so that they can elevate their ranking.

“There is an obsession with the World Cup and actually we are in the country with the biggest obsession of all,” said Andrew. “It’s why they haven’t won it since 1987, because they have become too obsessed with it.

“The World Cup draw is crucial, and that goes back to this point about obsession. Try to remove the obsession and it is thrown back at you by the IRB rankings and World Cup seedings.”

The sense of despair gripping New Zealand rugby was reflected yesterday when All Black captain Richie McCaw announced amid great fanfare that he was going nowhere. It has become news here when someone stays put.

The world’s best openside has extended his present contract with the NZRU until after the 2011 World Cup, while fly-half Daniel Carter is ready to take £500,000 for six months in France.

But McCaw’s re-signing at 27 is not quite the triumph it seems, because Carter’s agreed leave of absence creates a precedent and McCaw too will have the right to a sabbatical if he chooses.


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