A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Irish well off the pace
Tuesday November 8th: Irish team press conference officially scheduled for 12.45pm in the Citywest hotel. Eddie O'Sullivan, after apologising for being late, begins talking (very well, as it happens) at 1.15pm, and the main conference ends about 20 minutes later. In addition O'Sullivan does further radio and television interviews.
Some 40 journalists then hang around for players, who arrive to the hotel ground in sodden groups. They head inside to shower and eat lunch. More than an hour passes and Geordan Murphy arrives. It is after 3.15pm and few players have turned up. The fitness team begin to set up a mobile gym in the room for some frontrow players - interviews will take place around them. For the visiting journalists this is novel.
Reporters from Britain are fretting about travel arrangements, while Irish reporters jump ship to get to the Castleknock Hotel and Country Club for the official New Zealand press conference at 4pm, with Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen. This has been rescheduled to accommodate journalists attending both team announcements.
The All Blacks' conference begins at 4pm and ends 32 minutes later. The players are due to arrive for interview at 5pm. But the entire match 22 arrive at 4.55pm and wait patiently in the corridor until 5pm.
Available to everyone is a plastic, ring-bound manual with copious statistics on the All Blacks.There is also an official to offer correct pronunciation of Maori names. For the Irish journalists this too is novel.
When Black meets Green
As if you didn't already know, Ireland have played the All Blacks 17 times since 1905 and, despite coming agonisingly close a couple of times, lost the argument on all but one occasion, the draw in 1973. For what it's worth, here - from a Kiwi perspective - are the bare statistics.
28th June 2002Won 40-8 Eden Park, Auckland
15th June 2002Won 15-6 Carisbrook, Dunedin
17th November 2001Won 40-29 Lansdowne Road
15th November 1997Won 63-15 Lansdowne Road
27th May 1995Won 43-19 Ellis Park, Johannesburg
6th June 1992Won 59-6 Athletic Park, Wellington
30th May 1992Won 24-21 Carisbrook, Dunedin
18th November 1989Won 23-6 Lansdowne Road
4th November 1978Won 10-6 Lansdowne Road
5th June 1976Won 11-3 Athletic Park, Wellington
23th November 1974Won 15-6 Lansdowne Road
20th January 1973Drew 10-10 Lansdowne Road
7th December 1963Won 6-5 Lansdowne Road
9th January 1954Won 14-3 Lansdowne Road
7th December 1935Won 17-9 Lansdowne Road
1st November 1924Won 6-0 Lansdowne Road
25th November 1905Won 15-0 Lansdowne Road
Magnificent six for Elverys
Six All Black players will attend Elverys sports shop on St Stephen's Green, Dublin, to meet and greet rugby fans tomorrow at 2pm.
The New Zealand charm offensive will involve captain Tana Umaga (never mind the journalists, Tana, just enjoy the adulation of the youngsters), outhalf Dan Carter, winger Joe Rokocoko, three-try hero (against Wales last Saturday) Rico Gear, scrumhalf Byron Kelleher and backrow Jerry Collins. All have agreed to sign jerseys at the shop between 2pm and 3.15pm.
If they're good enough . . .
Who said props need several years to develop? Well, Irish people say it. In New Zealand the age thing has never really mattered. On Saturday the All Blacks are rolling out loosehead Tony Woodcock for his 16th cap. Age? 24. The tighthead John Afoa, just turned 21, makes his debut in direct opposition to Munster's 28-year-old Marcus Horan.
Afoa was a member of the New Zealand under-21 World Cup-winning side in 2003 and excelled for Auckland against the Lions last July.
There is another new boy in the front five: Taranaki lock Jason Eaton, who is yet to even play Super 12. The 23-year-old is a genuine rags-to-riches story. Only last year he was voted player of the season for the Taranaki second XV. Now he's an All Black and by all accounts a bloody good one.
Loe blow that crushed Poppy
All Black prop Richard Loe remembers his 1989 Test at Lansdowne Road with some clarity and probably so too does Nick Popplewell, then Ireland's newest prop. With both packs eager to show early dominance, Loe and his team-mates scrummed down at the first set-piece but, no less than Ireland, got the choreography completely wrong. Loe's head accidentally met Popplewell's sternum, and the Irishman had to leave the field immediately with an agonising injury.
The All Black recalls, "We had a chat and I commiserated with him afterwards. His jersey is now hanging in the Fraser-tech club-rooms in Waikato. It still smelled of liniment and they didn't even have to wash it as he was on the field so briefly."
Come to think of it, that Brian O'Driscoll shirt must be just as pristine.
Purple (and sable) prose
Now a brand name, the appellation "All Blacks" did not not actually catch on with the public when it first emerged during the original 1905 tour to Britain, France, Ireland and North America. The Devon newspaper the Express and Echo was the first to record the name in reports, while "All Blacks" first appeared in the Daily Mail on October 19th as a headline.
The industrious John Butterly of the Daily Mail then incorporated the name into a book title: Why The All Blacks Triumphed.
Butterly was noted for his writing style but was perhaps outdone by the Express and Echo reporter who wrote: "The All Blacks, as they are styled by reason of their sable and unrelieved costume, were under the guidance of their captain, Mr Gallagher, and their fine physical physiques favourably impressed the spectators."
You can almost see the women swooning.
