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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TRF C A Iversen" data-source="post: 429843" data-attributes="member: 12312">I dunno, Tennis, Golf, Boxing, Formula One and even International Rugby League (mostly since New Zealand won the World Cup - all of a sudden who's been number one the longest counts <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />  ) are very highly focused on the number one spot. There is a lot of emphasis on it in Soccer from people who want to talk about who's been the number one ranked side the most and won the most ***les in various comps over the years (Man U passing Liverpool for most League ***les for example), that's all effectively worshipping the number one spot.The ongoing load of codswallop that people keep throwing back at New Zealand is that saying we care more about being number one lowers how much we want the World Cup. WRONG. We all want it to be won immensely. Every New Zealand rugby fan would love it won and it's number one priority this year for sure!We've still got every right to say that it's just as important to us to try and maintain New Zealands legacy of overall success. Right now I can tell you for sure, that if a large number of New Zealanders had to choose between the two scenarios I'm about to show I've a fair idea what we'd choose.1) We've won 3 or 4 of the World Cups by now, but in between those wins we'd lost a large number of matches, see-sawing in the rankings between 3rd and 7th place. Over our history South Africa have passed us for the overall most wins between the two nations, Australia and England have beaten us more times than we've beaten them since World Cups began and with France we've had a 50/50 record with (winning nearly all of our games at home, but they've won nearly all at theirs). We've had an occasional loss to say Ireland (4/10 times played) Wales (3/10)  and Scotland (2/10). We lost the Lions Series 2-1 (one hiding against us).2) Or the status quo. Just the one world cup, but we've literally had a huge chunk of the number one status for most of the time since the rankings began. We've yet to lose to Scotland. We've not lost to Ireland or Wales since the World Cups started (or a fair while before that). We beat all of those other teams mentioned more often than not (home and away). We beat the Lions the last two tours and clean swept them last time.I ask you, is the World Cup really the more important of those two scenarios? If so, no wonder New Zealanders mostly have a different philosophy and it yields different rewards.</blockquote>

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