Rugby in New Zealand

By Andrew Baldock, Press Association Sport Rugby Union Correspondent

Sport has never been an exact science - and New Zealand rugby is proof of it.

Ever since Nelson College played Nelson Football Club 141 years ago in New Zealand's first rugby fixture, the game has enjoyed an exalted status from Auckland to Invercargill and any number of places in between.

The revered All Blacks - New Zealand's national team - can boast 10 Tri-Nations titles in 15 seasons and an endless production line of legendary players.

No rugby hall of fame could exist without including such names as Colin Meads, Sean Fitzpatrick, Jonah Lomu, Graham Mourie, Wilson Whineray, Dave Gallaher, Don Clarke, Dan Carter, Michael Jones, George Nepia and Richie McCaw.

But amid all the many highlights, one prize has eluded this fanatical rugby nation far too often - and it hurts.

There was a certain inevitability about New Zealand winning the inaugural World Cup in 1987 on home soil, but those memories of All Blacks captain David Kirk holding aloft the gold Webb Ellis Trophy at Auckland's Eden Park are fading fast.

Rugby's global extravaganza returns to the Land of the Long White Cloud in September, and after five World Cup failures spanning 20 years, the All Blacks know they must deliver.

For a country boasting such an immense and intense rugby existence, world dominance has eluded New Zealand far too often on the sport's biggest stage, and the 2011 All Blacks must somehow prevent that pressure from suffocating them.

Rugby is everywhere - and it means everything - in New Zealand.

Saturation television coverage, from Test matches to junior rugby on parks pitches, feeds the fans, and it is a regular event for All Blacks team announcements to headline national news bulletins.

A delve into the history books though makes it easy to understand why New Zealand and rugby are so closely acquainted.

The New Zealand Rugby Union was formed in 1892 with 10 inaugural members - the provincial unions of Auckland, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Marlborough, Nelson, South Canterbury, Taranaki, Waiararapa, Wanganui and Wellington.

Barely a year later, the famous black jersey was adopted as New Zealand's national team shirt, and expansion continued at a rapid pace.

By 1905, New Zealand's international players were embarking on their travels - a 35-match tour of the United Kingdom, France and North America when the All Blacks name first became associated with them.

‘The Originals’, as that squad subsequently became known, put an emphasis on entertainment under Gallaher's captaincy, laying down a marker for future generations.

A 32-game trip to the UK, France and Canada followed in 1924, and ‘The Originals’ became ‘The Invincibles’ by winning all 32 fixtures, including Test match victories against England, Wales, Ireland and France.

And while the nation's leading players went global, so firm foundations continued to be built back home as domestic rugby hotbeds like Canterbury, Southland and Otago joined the New Zealand Rugby Union.

By this stage, New Zealand had also hosted the touring British Lions, winning the inaugural fixture in 1904, although it was another 52 years before they claimed a Test series triumph over South Africa, arguably the All Blacks' fiercest rivals to this day.

That post-Second World War period saw the likes of Clarke, Whineray and Meads take centre stage.

Clarke was a prodigious goalkicker, Whineray a mighty captain and second-row hardman ‘Pinetree’ Meads a colossus who went on to be voted New Zealand's Player of the 20th Century.

Under Whineray's leadership, the All Blacks developed the consistency that is now their hallmark, losing just four Tests of his 30 as skipper. It was no surprise that Whineray subsequently became New Zealand's first inductee to the International Rugby Board's hall of fame.

With New Zealand firmly established as a world rugby force, the country's domestic structure took a significant step forward in 1976 with the formation of the two-division National Provincial Championship.

Repeated reorganisations were to take place over the next 30 years, but the competition underlined the strength of teams like Auckland and Canterbury, ensuring the pipeline of talent through to international rugby remained fast-flowing.

The 1970s proved another highly-successful decade for the All Blacks - although the game they are most remembered for was a defeat.

It came against the Barbarians at Cardiff Arms Park in 1973 when Wales star Gareth Edwards scored arguably the greatest international try of all-time during a match of sustained brilliance.

Five years later, Mourie captained New Zealand to a first successful Grand Slam tour when England, Wales, Scotland and France were all defeated, and by the time the 1987 World Cup came around it was a familiar question of who could stop the All Blacks.

The answer, unsurprisingly, was no one.

First opponents Italy left Eden Park in a mesmerised state after All Blacks wing John Kirwan dazzled them through a superlative solo score, and ultimately it was France that presented a none-too-taxing final hurdle between New Zealand and being acclaimed as rugby union's first world champions.

But the advent of professionalism eight years later came a matter of weeks after arguably New Zealand's most painful World Cup experience - defeat after extra time against hosts South Africa in Johannesburg.

The tournament had been notable, among many things, for the emergence of juggernaut All Blacks wing Jonah Lomu, whose four-try rampage against hapless England in Cape Town launched a successful career.

But it was also another World Cup that came and went from New Zealand's perspective without them taking home the trophy, as in 1999 and 2003, when France and Australia did for them at the semi-final stage.

And when 2007 followed a similar pattern - France again their conquerors in the quarter-finals at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium - it served merely to turn up the heat on a squad that knows it dare not fail this time around.

New Zealand possesses a rich rugby history littered with great players and great games, but only one World Cup is a chapter that needs urgent rewriting.