The All Blacks had Kiwi referee Ben O’Keeffe embedded with them for their three-day camp in Germany ahead of their opening World Cup match against France in Paris next Saturday, an addition which highlights the importance they are placing on staying on the right side of the officials.
Head coach Ian Foster revealed they had a “top ref” with them while training at the Adidas headquarters in Bavaria as they seek to improve their discipline and accuracy following their record defeat to the Springboks at Twickenham and 1News understands it was O’Keeffe, who will be officiating at the tournament.
It is not unusual for top teams to train under the supervision of referees – the New Zealand Super Rugby teams did this year, and France have had former top official Jerome Garces, who is now retired, on the books fulltime as a consultant since 2001.
But O’Keeffe’s presence is significant because the pressure on teams at the World Cup to keep 15 players on the field for the entirety of matches will be as high as it has ever been.
For the All Blacks, the game against the Boks was gone as soon as Scott Barrett was red carded at Twickenham – he earned his first yellow for a technical breakdown infringement while on a team warning for consistent offending.
South African Jaco Peyper will be the man with the whistle at the Stade de France on Saturday morning NZT, a selection likely to please Foster given Peyper's Southern Hemisphere refereeing idiosyncrasies and the rapport he has with the players, most notably skipper Sam Cane.
Speaking at the All Blacks’ first official press conference of the tournament in Lyon, where they are currently based, Foster didn’t want to make a big deal of Peyper’s appointment, but it may be a significant one.
“Jaco is a very experienced referee, he’s been picked for a reason for game one, I assume," Foster said.
“We have history and experience of what the refs’ idiosyncrasies are I guess, just like they have of us. We’ll go in informed about how they will ref and he’ll be the same as anyone – excited about the occasion.”
While the mauling at the hands of the Boks last weekend was brutal, it came about largely because the All Blacks were under-manned, although the world champions appeared far more up for the “warm-up” match than the All Blacks and won most of the physical battles even when Barrett and Cane, who was also yellow carded, were on the field.
Still, it showed once again how the usually tight margins in a Test can be shifted significantly by a card, especially a red.
“First lesson: have 15 men on the field,” Foster said. “When you lose what has been a power player from your pack you do become very vulnerable. That’s one key lesson, if we’ve got 15 on 15 I’m very confident.”
Asked whether the All Blacks had to “re-set” after that defeat, Foster replied: “I don’t think ‘re-set’ is the word, while we didn’t like the Twickenham result, it was the tough warm-up game we wanted. It highlighted some areas [requiring attention]. If you look at the game, what we learned was we were pretty vulnerable when a man down against lineout mauls. We conceded three lineout maul tries in the second half.”
The All Blacks (and Peyper), will be preparing for a unique atmosphere next Saturday as the French begin what for them is a campaign to lift the Webb Ellis Cup for the first time in front of what will likely be a crowd at near fever pitch.
Asked what he was expecting, Cane said: “Probably [an atmosphere] we haven’t experienced before - the excitement of playing a World Cup in a country where they would be close to being one of the favourites.
“The public know that, I don’t know if we can fully prepare for what it will be. But if we realise it’s going to be an awesome occasion and get excited by it, however loud, we’ll feed off that energy and enjoy it.”
The All Blacks will go into the game with Brodie Retallick, Shannon Frizell and Tyrel Lomax, who have already been ruled out, but the French have been dealt a worse hand injury-wise as star first-five Romain Ntamack, midfielder Jonathan Danty and lock Paul Willemse have been recently ruled out of the whole tournament.
“I think every team has to get used to that and to be fair that’s World Cups,” Foster said.
“That’s the reality, that’s why we’ve tried to build depth over the last year or so.”
Foster added: “You’ve got to remember that teams have to grow this tournament. I know we want to present ourselves as being at the peak of our powers at the start, but it’s how we grow through it. You want to be there at the end and to do that you’ve got to get better every day.”
The All Blacks will travel to Paris for the first game after an emotional visit to the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery in Longueval, in northern France, where more than 1200 New Zealand World War 1 soldiers are buried, including former All Black Bobby Black.
“That was quite a moving experience for the team, and then to go to the Wellington tunnels [from the 1917 Battle of Arras] and learn about what Kiwi soldiers went through along with the French over 100 years ago was incredible," Cane said.
"They left their mark on that area. It was nice for us to go there and experience it as a team; learn about what they did and sacrificed. It also gave us a clear idea of the connection between the two countries because of what we went through together.”
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