Conrad Smith sees USA challenge in all black and white: it's about the win

With only two losses in 44 games, New Zealand’s All Blacks are arguably the most successful team in international sports. On Saturday, the US Eagles face them at Chicago’s Soldier Field, in the first meeting between the two teams on American soil since 1980. For the home team, it will be a tough task. Just how tough is indicated by a conversation with – and consideration of – one of the All Blacks’ less-lionised stars.

The great Washington quarterback Joe Theismann once said: “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.” The next year of international rugby football, however, may well see Conrad Smith, the All Blacks’ back-line commander, seal his place in such rarefied ranks.

The 83-Test centre’s importance to his world-champion team is illuminated by the regard in which it holds him. Before the second of three victories against England in June, for example, the All Blacks captain, Richie McCaw, nodded tellingly at his vice-captain as they ran on to the Dunedin turf. McCaw explains: “Having Conrad on song, you get that look and you know he’s got it sorted.”

McCaw, a man with a good shout to be rugby’s all-time greatest player, tells me his centre, a law school graduate, is extraordinarily intelligent. “Conrad’s got a great understanding of what teams are trying to do; the psychological, mental side that goes with the game. He’s the first one to have an understanding of what’s required.”

The man they call “Snakey” – who had a stint volunteering at a community law centre, offering free legal help – is now turning that understanding to America.

“I’ve loved the time I’ve spent in the States,” Smith says, over a ginger beer at a coastal Wellington bar. “It’s my favourite country to visit. America’s a great sporting nation. Chicago’s a great city.” He has enjoyed watching all the major US sports, and says: “I saw the Chicago Blackhawks win ice hockey by a heap of points at the United Center.”

The difference the passionate, committed 33-year-old makes to the All Blacks – and the challenge he will provide England next week, after being rested in the US – was vividly illustrated in New Zealand’s first two games against Australia this year.

In the first, in Sydney and with Smith back home in Wellington, the All Blacks drew 12-12, and thus failed to extend a shared world record of 17 consecutive international wins. In the second, in Auckland and with Smith organising the backline with characteristic vision and application, they destroyed the Australians 51-20.

McCaw stresses that Smith remains crucial to the team’s impending World Cup defence, in England in 2015. After all, of the 21 All Blacks who have played in more than 50 Test-match victories, Smith has the highest winning percentage: 89.16%, 74 out of 83.

“That statistic’s indicative of the teams I’ve been fortunate to play in,” the good-humoured Smith says, as usual batting away too much personal praise.

‘We’re getting other countries keen, like America’

Smith is pleased that rugby, boosted by the inclusion of its seven-a-side form in the Olympics and Americans playing professionally overseas, is gaining in popularity in the US. “There’s so much going well for rugby union, and for our World Cup, in the world at the moment,” he says. “It’s getting bigger and bigger; we’re getting other countries keen, like America.”

Rugby’s got a “brilliant feel” globally, he says. “The 2011 World Cup looked like the coolest party around New Zealand. Man, sport at its best. We don’t have that whole hooliganism, it’s a global game, it’s a pure sport, and rival countries are patriotic and passionate but they can still get over it pretty quickly.”

Smith also appreciates US sports culture in its widest sense, in particular ESPN sports documentaries such as The 16th Man, which tells how Nelson Mandela employed the 1995 Rugby World Cup – its final, some say controversially, won by South Africa over the All Blacks – to power reconciliation in the Rainbow Nation.

“You almost think when you’re watching those films [The 16th Man and the Clint Eastwood-directed, Matt Damon-starring Hollywood treatment of the story, Invictus], that the Springbok win was a good thing,” he confides. “As much as it hurt, more good came out of that. Don’t worry about the boy crying in his lounge in New Plymouth – there were actually a lot more people who were inspired.”

Like many rugby players, professionals in an increasingly demanding trade, Smith has come back from serious injuries. During one long recovery, he says, he turned to an American TV classic: “Injuries are a very tough time for a rugby player, without fail. Reading a good book or watching The Wire is really good. The Wire’s like reading a novel, because there’s so much depth to it.”

He is still addicted. “It has so much to it and involves you so much. I just got caught up in it and bought the box set. I love anywhere in the five seasons. It’s just great, captivating. I’ll have to watch it again.”

‘It’s game on. I want to win and that’s all it’s about’

At Soldier Field, the All Blacks will perform the haka, the pre-game Maori war dance which exemplifies the importance of rugby in New Zealand culture. Smith loves this spiritual side of the All Blacks. “It’s powerful!” he exclaims.

The haka duly fascinates many around the world. In September, the USA basketball team’s puzzled but polite response to a haka from their New Zealand opponents – the inevitably named Tall Blacks – generated a viral video hit. Last November in Philadelphia, the Maori All Blacks, New Zealand’s de facto second team, were greeted with a wall of noise and chants of “USA! USA!” as they did their haka prior to a 29-19 win over a fired-up Eagles team. Any such response from the Chicago crowd will likely cause comment; debate over the right way to answer the haka is as old as rugby itself.

Fiercely competitive, Smith is also a genuine, affable man and sportsman. “When I’m in a game, whoever’s team I’m on and whoever’s against me, its game on,” he says. “I want to win and that’s what it’s all about. But it doesn’t have to extend beyond that.” After finishing battle between the white chalk lines, therefore, Smith tries to have a local beer with the opposition.

Such rituals as the post-match beer remain in rugby, helpful hangovers, as it were, from the less-pressured amateur age. Generally, this key board member of the New Zealand Players’ Association says, the All Blacks are managing such a balance of progress on the field and well-being off it.

“We still have our best players playing domestic in New Zealand,” he says. “There’s no reason rugby can’t keep growing.”

That said, Smith believes the rugby season is now too long. It is an issue which has been discussed in the press since the game in Chicago, an extra stop in a post-season schedule which will take the All Blacks to Europe for another three Tests, was confirmed in May.

“I think that’s where it does wear away on players,” he says. “It’s that mental thing as well: it’s a long time to have your head in the game. I think the IRB [International Rugby Board], and a lot of the powers that be, are well aware of it. Ideally, it won’t require player intervention.”

Smith is, however, convinced of rugby’s essential health, especially when compared to the dizzying, money-driven world of international soccer. “The more people find out about rugby, the more they love it because we’re not overpaid like they see in some other sports,” he says.

“They see it as a sport with a whole camaraderie and sportsmanship in the game, a game for the fans. It’s great at the moment, so if we keep driving that, who knows where rugby will end up?”

‘Every game is a World Cup final’

If any reader is still in any doubt over just how steep a task the Eagles face, he or she might consider the words of the highly respected Argentina back-rower Juan Fernandez Lobbe. Speaking in 2007, Lobbe said: “To win, the All Blacks’ 15 players have to have a diarrhoea and we will have to put snipers around the field shooting at them and then we have to play the best match of our lives.”

Reminded of Lobbe’s remarks, Smith laughs: “I think the reason the All Blacks have played well against teams like the Pumas is because we respect them. We never buy into that.”

The Pumas, for years not too far above the US in the rankings, now compete each year with the All Blacks, Australia and South Africa’s Springboks. And they are not the only country on the rise. Smith believes about 10 countries are on their way towards true competitiveness at the 2019 World Cup, which will be held in Japan.

The 18th-ranked Eagles may not be in that number; indeed, some observers have pondered just how high the score might mount in front of Chicago’s 62,000 fans. But the world champions always respect the opposition, and Smith assures me they will take their trip to Soldier Field entirely seriously.

“For the All Blacks,” he says, “every game is like a World Cup final.”