<div class='quotemain'>You actually speak sense here. All our guys are too nice. The only guy who speaks his mind openly is Jerry where all the others seem like puppets. I'm sick of this"oh, we are playing Scotland this week which is always a tough game and we'll have to be at our peak to beat them", coming week in week out from everyone. What the f***? Are you joking me? Scotland never cause us trouble and we always romp home no matter what. We're kidding ourselves talking **** like that, we need hard honest and brutally truthful leaders in our team who carry that mentality on the field. [/b]
No, you're going about it the wrong way there. You're assuming that the team has to have attain a natrual air of arrogance which is something, as Kiwis, that comes free as part of the package.
What I mean is that you need players who don't just speak up, but get so angry at the predicament that they throw fellow players against walls, slam doors so hard that they break and generally bellow and go bersek until the rest of the team gets the message and ups their game.
Want to know why Martin Johnson was such a good Captain? Because he could voice his sheer rage and frustration at the team's performance and channel it into a means to boost the team. New Zealand have nothing like that right now.
You don't need some sneering arrogant man with a monocle sniffing at the sight of the opposition, what you need are several experienced and very angry men who put the fear of god into the younger team members. [/b][/quote]
There's a great documentary on Ireland's 6N campaign, which shows lots of shouting and cursing in the dressing room before each match, guys trying to pump themselves up. You can even hear someone puking up in the background. It's all a bit schoolboy. A kiwi on here commented that that's alien to the NZ way, where cold confidence is preferred.
Carter may have looked nervous before the 1/4 final, but last November the entire French team looked frightened before both tests. It's impossible to say which is the best way to prepare for conflict, but leaders on the pitch make the real difference - give confidence rather than scare the **** out their own players.
A great captain like Johnson, Eales or Fitzpatrick is rare, and I don't think we've seen any in this RWC. Maybe Pichot is coming in to his own - he's not as brash as I've seen him before.
