Fitzpatrick: All Blacks’ perfect planning will secure place in history

Sean Fitzpatrick is confident New Zealand are arriving at the World Cup with the best-prepared squad in All Blacks history and equipped to mount the first successful defence of the title.

Fitzpatrick, a 1987 World Cup winner and holder of 92 caps, today paid tribute to the forensic nature of coach Steve Hansen’s selection process, which started immediately after the All Blacks won the 2011 World Cup, beating France 8-7 in Auckland.

He explained: “This is the best-prepared All Blacks squad I have ever seen, with a wonderful blend of youth and experience. Hopefully, some of the young kids in the squad will set the tournament on fire and they must have thought very hard about the make-up of the team because 15 of the 31 have already won a World Cup.

“Winning back-to-back World Cups has never been done before and it would be very special for the All Blacks to achieve that feat because this will be the hardest tournament to win. Look at what Hansen and Co have done with selection, picking Waisake Naholo and Nehe Milner-Skudder, who have three caps between them, and leaving out Corey Jane and Israel Dagg, who jointly have over 100 caps. The coaches have looked at the style of play they need to win a World Cup and those two players could be dynamite.

“New Zealand were probably the last bastion of not preparing for a World Cup four years out, but this time the work began the day after the 2011 final. A line was drawn in the sand and they started to plan to win the Cup again. In 2007, they tried to prepare differently and gave away All Blacks jerseys, creating two teams while trying to find the right combinations.

“This time, the coaches have methodically developed a squad of 31, knowing that any one of those players could start a Test match.”

While the former All Blacks captain believes that, like his own country, England have enough strength in depth to reach the World Cup Final, they will not achieve that goal unless they emerge winners of Pool A, which contains Australia, Wales, Fiji and Uruguay.

“Without doubt, the teams with the greatest strength in depth reach finals,” added Fitzpatrick. “While England don’t have a lot of world-class players, they do have depth to get by. Whoever wins Pool A will go through to the final and be fresher than the team that comes the other way, because second place will mean South Africa in the quarters, New Zealand in the semis just to earn the right to contest the final.

“If England reach the final, they are at home with that crowd support — and so if the All Blacks do defend the trophy, it will be the greatest win ever because of the quality of the opposition.”

Fitzpatrick remains an icon of All Blacks rugby and is genuinely excited to be just a week away from the start of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, with England facing Fiji at Twickenham.