Well, it’s All Black, people!
Yep, the land of the long white sheep-shagger has taken out the 2011 search for TBJ. And well done, bros. If it’s not gunna be the Wallabies, then I’m happy it’s you guys. Honest. Honest I am.
And what a bloody good final. Easily the best one yet. Crikey, footy at that level, and it’s a cliché, but it’s all about taking your opportunities. And it showed that you don’t need 1,000 tries for a spectacle. (But, let’s not kid ourselves, it bloody helps!)
It was all Frenchy in the second half. Look, I reckon it woulda been tough being a kiwi during that second half. I’ll give you an idea how important that game was to kiwis: I received a call from a kiwi mate early Sundie arvo and he reckoned he had the cleanest house, best prepared garden and most chockers pantry in Australia.
He was that bloody chock-a-block with nervous energy, he’d been up from about 4.00 am. First, cleaning the house, and then, when time permitted, he went at the garden with the mower, clippers and weed killer, and then baked a cake, some scones and a meat pie.
So, I can only imagine how tough it musta been for the big fella with Frenchy throwing everything, I mean everything, at the All Blacks in the second half. By gee-by-jingo, I was even nervous for ’em, so he’d have been pacing a fair bit, I reckon. Maybe he baked a batch of sausage rolls? That reminds me, I might give him a call.
But, in the end of the day, the best team in the world of rugby won. Ya kinda can’t ask much more than that, results-wise from the search for TBJ.
Sooooooooooo, what has the seventh edition of the search for TBJ achieved?
OK, so the search for TBJ is over, sooooooooo, where does global rugby stand as a result? Well, I suppose it depends on what you reckon the baby is all about. Is it simply the proverbial rugby pee-pee measuring contest? (With the Kiwis the biggest pee-pees.) Is it all about revenue generation? Maybe it’s all about strengthening the game in its core markets? Or maybe it’s about penetration into new markets?
Well, it’s probably bittsa all those, and maybe a few others, but let’s focus on the four objectives above. It’s obviously about rugby pee-pee measuring. Always will be. No issues there. Soooooo objective accomplished. Revenue generation? Of course. And the search for TBJ does a pretty bloody good job of that, too.
Working the core!
And you’d have taaaaa say that the search definitely strengthens the code in its core markets. From a pure rugby perspective, for people who understand the game and follow it closely, the rugby was some of the best produced. So that’s three outta three.
Now, penetration into new markets. I’m not tooooo convinced about this one. It think all the search for TBJ did for those outside the game is confirm stereotypes and strengthen their preconceived ideas about the game. And, look we can’t keep ‘em all happy, nor should we.
But the search should be the best promotion for the code, and, in achieving that, take the code into new territories. Not sure it achieved that.
But three outta four ain’t tooooooo bad.
Second tier teams offer soooooo much
Without stating the bloody obvious, again, the quality of the second tier teams is soooo important to the overall search for TBJ’s product quality and marketability.
And I reckon there is a first among equals here. For mine, what the Pacific islands teams bring to the search for TBJ, is four times the value of, say, Scotland and Argentina, for example. One issue is it’s just not whitey teams running around in the search. Another is the style of play they offer. And the third is their physicality and skill level. Combine all these elements and there’s a synergy (the fourth element of their value) that is soooooooo marketable for the game.
The IRB must be lauded for the importance they place on second and third tier development. We’ve seen in this World Cup their improvement. But, if I was IRB CEO for a day and one initiative introduced in that time could be ratified into their strategic plans, I’d make sure that fifty percent of the revenue from this and other World Cups would be directed to improving Asian and Pacific nations playing and business models.
Well, that’s about it from me. I’m rugby’d out. It’s time to focus on the whites and the cherry — cricket that is, baby!
Hooroo.
