New Zealand Herald: All Blacks win scrappy Cup opener

Every nation has its sporting obsession. In the US it is football, in much of the world, soccer. Cricket was invented in England but seems to have been made for India, while Canada and Russia eat, sleep, drink and breathe hockey. In New Zealand it is rugby. New Zealand is madly, completely and absolutely besotted with rugby. Every kid has a rugby ball somewhere, most play it, and there is always a game going on. Their national team, the All Blacks, are the sport's international royalty. Their matches are events as much as contests, each one beginning with a stirring performance of a haka, an ancient Maori dance.

So there is tradition and pageantry galore, the kind of thing that stitches a nation together. All of this passion has one major drawback, however: under the weight of their home country's expectations, the All Blacks have consistently underperformed at the Rugby World Cup, winning the tournament only once, in 1987, despite nearly always being ranked as the world's number one team.

This year the World Cup is on home turf in New Zealand, and the team is making the right noises, embracing the pressure with an outwardly unruffled confidence. To win the tournament here and now would be a storybook result, a Hollywood ending, the actualization of a dream: and perhaps the last chance to make this particular dream come true. It is unlikely that the World Cup will ever be staged in New Zealand again, despite its being the most rugby crazed nation there is. Big money is getting involved in the sport through a deal with the Fox empire, and Fox wants lucrative locations. New Zealand, a nation of islands with a population of 4 million that is 900 miles by open sea from Australia, and 600 miles from Fiji, is a little too remote for the big-money suits who now matter.  The next World Cup will be in England, and after that, Japan.

The All Blacks got off to a good start in today's opener, beating Tonga 41-10, but there is a long way to go before the Web Ellis Cup is finally awarded on October 23. Keep the All Blacks in your thoughts. The other nations with a recognized chance to win are Australia, South Africa, England and France.