Mark Keown

There is this romanticism that is associated with NZ rugby supporters. We look at today's pampered AB's arguing that they have no mental toughness, cannot win the big ones, are not up to it when the pressure is on. We look back on the 'hard men' of NZ rugby in the 'good old days' and we pine for former glories. 'If they had had world cups in the good ol' days, we would have won them all'! Yeah right. Track back into the archives and the AB's have always dominated (as they do now actually) but they had some really tough times and lost matches unexpectedly. Our best period was clearly the 60's but we still lost surprisingly to South Africa in 1960 at home, to the Aussies in 1964 in the third test (a shocker), drew against Scotland 0-0 in 1964, lost to the Springboks in 1965 in the third test when way ahead at half time. From 1965 to 1969 they were unbeaten, a time in which we possibly would have won the world cup. However, as 1970 showed, we ma...