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  Bob also had become very adept at finding the right balance within a team—that important blend of youth, experience and the intangibles. Campo, for example, wasn’t always the easiest to manage. He sought attention sometimes, as if his brilliance on the field didn’t bring him enough of it. You had to be strong with him without either alienating him or letting him enforce his wishes on the team as a whole. Bob knew how to handle him personally and how to extricate the most out of him as a player. He knew how to manage all of us, and that was quite a skill to have. You could call it synergy, and he really made it work.

  Yes, he had some problems in the first couple of years when he came back: 1988 and ’89 were poor years by our standards, but he was rebuilding. You have to build to get to the top. Set some goals. Measure your progress. Then, in 1991, everything clicked. Australia had that perfect storm of the right players at the right stages of their careers overseen by the coach who knew how to get the best out of them.

  Anyway, you could say that we were on the right track in that we had all become much more knowledgeable about specific areas of the game and preparation, but I think we took the approach too far, too quickly and perhaps didn’t quite manage it properly—to the point where we possibly lost sight of the bigger picture.

  In theory, Bob’s focus on the consultants was absolutely right. But there were two sides to the implementation. Bob had to first identify the need for the consultants in our system. He’d done that, and we’d had a small window of opportunity to bed them in prior to the World Cup. But it was also vitally important that he managed their various expectations within the squad set-up. Yes, they were on board and part of the new direction, but the players’ freshness and physical wellbeing still had to be the number one priority, in my opinion. It was a question of emphasis and I looked at it and thought, ‘I don’t envy Bob here. This is not an easy balance.’

  BOB DWYER: I’ve tried to think about it without getting too upset, seeing as it’s in the past. In my mind, there was definitely a possibility—or even a probability—that paralysis by over-analysis played a part [in Australia’s elimination in the quarter-finals of the World Cup]. Subconsciously, maybe there was a bit of complacency too—people thinking more about outcomes than actual performance. Frequently, when trying to move forward, one sometimes goes in the wrong direction. You need to keep moving, but in an effort to move, you need to remember what the destination is. Also, and I’ve thought about it a lot: if the sports psychologist is doing his job, he should not be at the competition venue. His role should be to teach skills which the player himself takes forward, not to be there acting as a prop. In 1995, he was there as a prop.

  From a captain and player’s perspective, the primary practical downside for us was that we had too many meetings. Rugby players train, run, kick and then run some more. That’s what we do. I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t then come off the paddock, sit down and say, ‘That was good, that wasn’t, he was good, he was crap.’ That would have been fine. But these were long meetings with lots of talking, lots of deep analysis—they were much more like a finance or business seminar than a rugby team’s preparation.

  Then we combined these long meetings with getting on the training field and staying there far too long. Sometimes a training session would be three hours or more—far longer than any game or even any two games. I was always one for the old-school approach of training very hard for a solid hour. Emptying everything out, breathing hard—feeling like you’ve really exerted yourself. Then coming off for a rest, saying, ‘That was a great, hard session. That worked well, that didn’t work, let’s try this tomorrow, let’s never do that again.’ Instead, all we felt at the end was ‘Jeez, that lasted forever but we could have done so much better in a focused shorter session.’

  I’d always enjoyed practising and developing my skills at full speed to simulate a match situation, not training at half-pace. You had it planned, everyone knew exactly what they were doing, and you were done in an hour. That’s what most of us were used to. Suddenly we found ourselves standing around on the training field not doing very much of anything. It didn’t feel as if we were achieving enough.

  Also, once we knew that we were likely to be out in the Cape Town sun for three hours, we paced ourselves for the first hour of training, simply because we didn’t know what was coming later. I’d think to myself, ‘What if the last hour of three is a fitness session?’ I kept a bit in reserve just in case. Anyone sensible would have done the same thing. The problem was, I think we ended up playing like that on the pitch too. Your body becomes conditioned to saving something because that’s what you’ve done in training. And you can’t keep anything for yourself in international rugby. You can only focus on what’s in front of you there and then. You live for that day and that day only. And if you get injured or are too drained to come out and do it the next day, the squad is there specifically to provide back-up and someone else can be brought in. That’s how it should be.

  IT’S HARD TO OVERSTATE just how important that opening match with South Africa was for both teams. It wasn’t just a huge rugby match—it was a momentous spectacle, especially given the hype and expectation that was being piled on the hosts. Playing the defending World Champions was a monumental national occasion for the host nation, but in simple rugby terms—and this is the only part I tried to focus on—the game would decide which side of the draw you were on. We’d need to take small steps, successfully, to achieve our goal.

  It was pretty easy to work out. If we lost, and the other pool games went on form, we would more than likely play New Zealand in the semis—a side that any team wanted to avoid until the final. Admittedly, the All Blacks hadn’t had a great 1994 season. Unusually, they were slightly understated—they might even have been trying to fly under the radar. But with the likes of Jonah Lomu on the wing needing six people to tackle him, there was only so far under the radar they could fly.

  On the other hand, win the South African game and we’d go the other route, with a kinder draw that, on paper, looked as if it would lead to a semi-final against the perennially unpredictable French in Durban. We knew very well what the French were capable of, but we weren’t even thinking about them. Our aim, like everyone else’s, was to win the World Cup. The first step was finding a way to beat the hosts.

  In the few days prior to the game, we kept seeing pictures of the South African players in the papers, and one of them really grabbed me. I was having breakfast with Bob Dwyer and prominent in that morning’s paper was a shot of the Springboks training. It almost seemed like sporting propaganda, put out there to get in our heads. The players were running with their shirts off, and when I saw it, I said to myself, ‘Oh my God. They look pretty lean, these boys.’ I thought of myself as being pretty fit, but you wouldn’t have persuaded me to take my shirt off for a photograph, I can assure you. The Springboks had serious muscles, six-packs etc. They looked ready. Then there were the reports of the very strict diet they were subjected to: mainly rice and boiled chicken. We had that as part of our regimen too, but judging by the pictures, they’d had a lot less of it.

  As if nagging doubts about our preparation weren’t distraction enough, there was a background issue that did me no favours prior to the first game against South Africa. I was made aware, in my capacity as the captain of Australia, of a proposed professional rugby breakaway competition, to be run by the so-called World Rugby Corporation (WRC for short), just before one of the biggest games of my life. It would have been huge news whenever I heard it, but the timing could hardly have been worse.

  The conversation came about almost by accident. On the Thursday before the Saturday match, I asked for a meeting with Bob. I felt the need for us to sit down, captain to coach—to make sure we were both on the same page. I wanted to ask ‘How are we doing as a squad?’ and, just as importantly, ‘How am I doing?’

  It felt like we’d hardly had a conversation since we’d arrived in South Africa. My teammates were on my back abou
t the time we were spending on the training pitch, and it was my role as their captain to listen and to pass the comments on. I needed to talk to Bob and find a way to streamline the sessions a bit. It made sense to me to wind things down. The matches were imminent. Big matches. I thought we should taper proceedings a little to keep the guys fresh. I thought I could pitch the idea pretty convincingly.

  So Bob and I met and sat outside another hotel one afternoon after training. We were chatting away, having a cup of tea in the sunshine. He saw my point of view about the training set-up. He agreed with me on the whole but was wary about upsetting the squad atmosphere as far as the support staff were concerned. At least he was listening, though. I could go back to the guys and say, ‘Look, I’ve asked if we can condense the sessions.’ They’d understand the position I was in, and once the matches began I was sure it would be less of an issue anyway.

  ‘Look, Nod, there’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about . . .’

  I put my cup down.

  ‘Yeah? What’s that?’

  And with that Bob went on to outline this planned breakaway rugby idea, reminiscent of what Kerry Packer had done with cricket in the late 1970s. It, involved us, New Zealand, South Africa and the Home Nations breaking away from the International Rugby Board to form a new, televised rugby competition. It was seemingly still very hush-hush, as I obviously knew nothing about it. I hadn’t seen it coming at all.

  BOB DWYER: I think there was, initially at least, less talk about the breakaway in our squad than in others. Not many of the Wallaby team even knew about it. Only the guys who’d been approached by rugby league knew about it. But it was me who told Michael because he’d already mentioned to me that he was planning to retire.

  The details were sketchy. At that stage nobody really knew who the backers were or exactly what was on the table. There was big talk—but only talk—of A$150,000 a year contracts and the like, which, given that we were earning nothing at the time, was obviously very significant money.

  Bob said, ‘We should be telling all the team this.’

  ‘Well no, we shouldn’t be.’

  I respected Bob’s opinion, but I thought the timing was terrible. I felt that it would be a distraction the team didn’t need.

  Sticking in my mind also was the fact that, back in Australia, there was major upheaval going on within the sport of rugby league—an upheaval that involved a few of our squad. Basically, there was a bidding war going on between the existing rugby league set-up run by the Australian Rugby League and a planned Rupert Murdoch and News Limited-backed ‘Super League’.

  It was the upstart News-backed guys versus the establishment. Entire teams like the Brisbane Broncos (who were owned by News Limited) had broken away completely from the traditional set-up and individual players were being asked to choose which side they wanted to go with. Big money was being thrown around as an incentive to sign and both sides of this rugby league war were also aggressively pursuing our centres, Jason Little and Tim Horan, as part of the ongoing war to attract the best players.

  I knew that Timmy and Jason were considering their options. I didn’t blame them. They needed to make a living like anyone else. I thought that the best thing to do would be for me to take them aside, as their captain, and give them a heads-up as to what might be down the line. I did that, but didn’t share all of the information I was privy to at that stage. I felt that to start throwing numbers around—numbers that sounded like they’d been plucked from thin air anyway—would only be unsettling and counterproductive in a squad context. All Timmy and Jason needed to know was that there were alternatives on the horizon in rugby union and therefore they shouldn’t hastily commit to rugby league as the only financially attractive option. I felt that they needed some basic information so that they could make educated decisions after the World Cup. As friends, I only wanted the best for them.

  Also, while the breakaway wasn’t quite the talk of the tournament, I was pretty certain that Francois Pienaar and Sean Fitzpatrick at the very least knew as much as I did. From a trust perspective I wanted the information to come from me, their captain, not from somebody outside the Australian camp. I didn’t want Timmy and Jason to feel that I’d withheld information from them that was crucial to their future. I’d played with them too long, we’d come this far, and I respected them both far too much to be in any way underhand.

  SEAN FITZPATRICK: We knew nothing about it until after the final. On the Sunday morning after the final, we were invited to go round to somebody’s house and that’s where we were told. Some of the guys that weren’t playing in the final had been approached on the previous Friday, but other than that we knew nothing. It probably epitomised our standing in world rugby at that time. We were not the number-one ranked team in 1994 and 1995, although they obviously needed the All Blacks to go. We just weren’t the reigning World Champions.

  TIM HORAN: Even before the World Cup, Jason and I had had a combined offer to go to a couple of different clubs involved in the Super League breakaway, and so the first person we confided in was Noddy. It didn’t affect our concentration on the World Cup, but it just let him know what was going on. Equally, he kept us informed about the potential the WRC could have once the World Cup was over. He basically said, ‘Hold your horses until after the tournament.’

  Predictably, given what was at stake, the breakaway issue escalated significantly as the tournament went along and at one point I was offered a significant amount of money—A$250,000 to be precise—to basically ‘deliver’ my team to the organisers on a plate. They requested a letter of intent from all the players. In addition, I was to be offered a contract, but as I’d decided that I was retiring after the World Cup anyway, that part didn’t concern me.

  I said, ‘Look, I don’t want to get involved with all this at the moment. But I want to be kept in the picture as to what’s going on.’

  The organisers said: ‘Okay, we’ll do that.’

  I was kept in the picture as things developed. But at the same time I was adamant that I didn’t want my team sidetracked by this chatter, apart from the guys I’d already told. So I gathered information as the tournament progressed and kept most of it to myself. I knew that was the policy that would give the team the best chance in the World Cup.

  It might surprise you if I told you that I don’t remember many specific details about the games in that World Cup—but I’ve never really remembered all the ins and outs of any game. Even directly after a game, sitting in the changing room, heart still pounding, I wouldn’t remember too much. I was always—as coaches and psychologists like to call it—‘in the moment’. I think that’s a compliment. Then I’d move on to the next moment and the next and it would take me a while after the game to piece all these components together. Sometimes I never reconciled them at all.

  BOB DWYER: Looking back on that first game I think, ‘Maybe we over-trained—maybe we should have tapered things off a bit earlier.’

  After what seemed like an endless build-up, South Africa came out very organised, very well coached and extremely well captained on that May 25th afternoon at Newlands in Cape Town. On paper it was close and on the pitch it was too. On reflection, in my position as captain, it was also the single tensest encounter I’ve ever been involved in.

  I remember looking around at some of the younger guys and thinking, ‘Jeez, you look pretty overawed by this.’ And I didn’t blame them. After all, I—a guy who’d been around the block a few times and had seen pretty much everything—struggled to cope with the huge partisan crowd and the sense of history. What chance did these young guys have? What chance did any of us have?

  It was a big, big occasion and one that South Africa at home, in their first ever World Cup game, definitely dealt with better than we did. We didn’t play like World Champions; we played like a group of guys who’d forgotten what the aim of the game actually was.

  We were slow, rigid and devoid of ideas. South Africa were keen, hungry and ready to remove the
decades of exile-sized chip from their shoulders at our expense. Defeat, albeit a narrower one than we warranted, meant that our route through the tournament was decided. We’d get the All Blacks in the semis.

  If we even got there.

  ROB ANDREW: Although none of us would have admitted it at the time, the Australia game carried a fair bit of payback for our defeat in the 1991 World Cup final. We’d been beaten at home, at Twickenham, and a lot of the same players were still involved, on both sides. My overriding memory is that it was a cat-and-mouse game that became a kicking contest. Michael and I traded kicks. That’s how it went. Pressure kicks all the way through.

  The game against England in the quarter-final is one that I don’t remember too much about. I think I’ve mentally blanked out more of that one than some others. In hindsight it was a misjudgement, but beforehand I felt, ‘It’s England and we should have the beating of them.’

  Saying that, I do remember just enough in general terms to say that we weren’t great at all. It still felt as if we had no new ideas. We lacked attacking direction and, fortunately, England did too. Still, we somehow managed one try each. At least we had each other’s moves covered from a defensive standpoint. It was a stalemate. I remember thinking, ‘If we can hang in there, maybe I can make this a kicking contest between me and Rob Andrew.’ That seemed like our best chance of winning.

  Those are just vague, hazy recollections. And I must have been a clairvoyant, because the kicking contest part came true. He kicked one; I kicked one. Then he kicked one and then I didn’t. I never got another chance. It was quite straightforward really: we lost 25–22.

  One strange memory that did stay with me, though, was something very specific and also rather delicate—not a word that you’d normally associate with a World Cup quarter-final. I remember the sensation of air brushing past my hand as Rob Andrew’s match-winning drop goal headed towards the posts. I rarely get a moment to step back and look at the beauty or romance in someone else’s work. This would have been quite pretty to watch, if it hadn’t knocked us out.