Sport

Macqueen: All Blacks' Class of 2010 standing on the verge of greatness

July 29, 2010 Edition 2

IAN RANSOM

MELBOURNE: New Zealand are the litmus test for teams with World Cup ambitions and have assembled a side that now stand on the cusp of greatness, former Australia coach Rod Macqueen believes.

Macqueen, who had led the Wallabies to their second World Cup triumph in 1999, yesterday said the current All Blacks possessed the hallmarks of the Sean Fitzpatrick-captained sides of the 1990s.

"I suspect that it's a side that's probably on the verge of greatness and probably getting back to the Fitzpatrick days - the kind of team that's quite measured and doing very well.

"(New Zealand's) Achilles heel in the past has been not having a Plan B; when things start to go wrong, they continue to go wrong.

"But we're seeing instances now that they're making decisions themselves within the team and they seem fairly confident, and when things start to go wrong, they come back pretty quickly."

The top-ranked All Blacks routed defending Tri-Nations champions South Africa in their opening two home matches with an ominous blend of pace and power.

They face the Wallabies at Melbourne's Docklands Stadium on Saturday.

Much of the All Blacks' quality could be put down to the captaincy of flank Richie McCaw who, Macqueen said, had anchored the playing group over a period of years.

"He's been a steadying influence over a period of time. When you look at some of the down-times New Zealand had, they were chopping and changing the captains and so on.

"You've got a fairly stable lot there now. The coaching staff hasn't changed a lot for quite a while and the captaincy and leaders within the group (haven't changed), and it's come together quite nicely."

Macqueen was less bullish about Australia's World Cup prospects, saying their young side had hard work to do and needed to take notes from their match on Saturday.

"I think they'll know a lot better after this match. I think this is going to answer a lot of questions." - Reuters