Are the All Blacks Chokers?

I had been out to a musical last night and got home a little late, missing the first 48 seconds of the All Blacks last world cup pool match. I was 12 seconds late, the New Zealanders had already scored their first try.
In fact, the All Blacks have scored a try within 5 minutes in every pool match they have played at this tournament. They have hardly been put under any pressure in accounting for Italy 76-14, Portugal
108-13, Scotland 40-0 and now the Romanians 85-8. They have scored 309 points in conceding just 35 with an average score of 77-9. Once again they have been the only side to truly dominate every opponent in pool play on the scoreboard.
And yet New Zealanders are nervous. They hold this All Black side to such high standards that a path through pool play where no team comes within 40 points of them is naturally put down to weak opponents rather than good performances by their team. They are bothered by error rates, lack of composure and an inability to keep their try-line intact against so called 'lesser' teams. In the back of everyones mind is the burning desire for this team to finally win the world cup, but the secret suspicion that, once again, we will see our team play one bad game in four years, and lose the opportunity to bring the cup home.
With the preliminaries out of the way, the New Zealand public now needs to start wanting wins, not impressive moves or inflated scorelines. From here on in New Zealand can look forward to playing their two tri-nations rivals, and the pre-tournament favorites France. In other words, to win the world cup, the All Blacks must beat 3 of the top 5 teams in the world on consecutive weekends. While in any single one of those matches the All Blacks will be going in favorites, each of the teams has the potential to score a victory over the All Blacks.
To shake the choker tag, the All Blacks need to maintain their own standards and deny their three opponents the chance to 'get up' for the big game. So let's take a look at the record against their three most likely opponents.
France will be dissappointed to have to go the hard route to the final. They have played well in patches, but without the self assurance of a French team in form. They had wanted to build up a air of invincability leading into the world cup, but that plan was set alight last November with the All Blacks putting them away comfortably twice at Lyon and Paris. Since then they have lost to England at Twickenham, the two 'B-team' tests in New Zealand and then to Argentina in the opener of the world cup. The All Blacks will only have to think back two world cups though to know that you cannot write off a french team no matter how many times you have defeated them recently or how badly they have been playing. France had the wood on the All Blacks during the 90's, but this decade has been all black for les Bleus. We may see that after the quater final the All Blacks have still not had an opponent come within 40 points. At the same time we could see the All Blacks watching the rest of the tournament from the stands. This will certainly be a game not to miss.
Until a week ago I would have said the Australians had an easy path into the semi-finals against a hapless English side or a Tongan side that would have already played their final. But the return of Johnny Wilkinson appears to have restored structure to the English side, and while I still expect Australia to progress, the English may well press them more than we previously expected. Australia have an ability to upset the All Blacks when it counts. Their team is filled with smart players - qualified lawyers, accountants and Doctors. They have an uncanny ability to make the All Blacks play 'dumb' rugby and take advantage of it. Once again, this is a game the All blacks should win comfortably, but could be the end of their world cup quest just as easily.
The Springboks can expect to make it to the final, but will no doubt be carrying some bumps and bruises when they do. They will be playing the Fijian side that this week eliminated the Welsh from the tournament, and this is a dangerous prospect for the South Africans. As they showed against Samoa and Tonga, the South Africans can struggle with the Island teams. This is because they are so often drawn into the island style of game. South Africans are immensely proud and when met with the confrontational style of the islanders, they often feel the need to fight like with like, when it is their discipline and structure which will see them home. Fiji will have trouble backing up their big effort against Wales against a vastly superior South African outfit. After Fiji the South Africans can look forward to some real trench warfare against the Argentinians(who have probably the easiest semi-final).
Importantly South Africa rate themselves against the All Blacks. While Australia believe they can beat the All Blacks on any given day, the South Africans believe they SHOULD beat the All Blacks on any given day. Both teams will be happy to have gone through a tough path to the final, neither side will be happy with anything worse than the world cup trophy.
There is no doubt the All Blacks are favorites in all their remaining games, and whether they can shake the 'choker' tag will depend on how well they can maintain their structure, impose themselves on the game and ultimately get the result they should.

Tom Scott is a die hard supporter of the All Blacks looks forward to seeing New Zealand be the first team to retain a world cup in 2011.