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Sam Cane opens up on the Kriel tackle and Rugby World Cup final red card
By Ben Smith
Retiring All Black skipper Sam Cane has given a raw and emotional recount of his red card in the Rugby World Cup final after his tackle on Springboks centre Jesse Kriel.
He described a level of overwhelming shock and disappointment that returns when thinking about what happened, and a huge sense of responsibility for "letting the team down."
Cane told his story on Episode 2 of the All Blacks: In Their Own Words series, a review of the 2023 season and the ill-fated Rugby World Cup campaign.
The All Blacks had fallen into a 6-0 deficit and had just returned to 15 men with flanker Shannon Frizell back on the field.
"I know in Test matches it is about regaining momentum and nailing our next moment," Cane said.
After gaining some key territory, a lineout throw inside the Boks' 22 from Codie Taylor went array which was picked up by Damian de Allende and shovelled onto Jesse Kriel.
The Springbok centre spun around before running at the All Black captain, which he said caught him "off-guard".
"Jesse's done a full U-turn and he ended up running back towards me," he recalled.
"I was caught off-guard a bit, it was quite an upright tackle. Then sure enough they stop play, yellow card.
"Then the sideline official came over and just said 'it's going to be upgraded to a red'.
"Even now just saying those words I feel tension and a sense of shock that I encountered in that moment, hits me again now."
The moment became even more emotional when Cane locked eyes with his family members, sitting close by in the Stadium.
"All of a sudden I'm in the sin bin chair, look over my shoulder and all of our families are sitting right there.
"Look my parents in the eye, who have supported me for so long and come over to support me, my wife, my sisters, the other boys' families who you've got to know closely over a long period of time.
"Just an overwhelming feeling that I've let my teammates down when they needed me the most."
A rousing half-time speech led to a resurgent second half where they scored the game's only try and just fell short by one point by 12-11, leaving two opportunities to take the lead on the tee.
Mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka said the team was "standing on the precipice" of writing the "greatest chapter in All Black history" having completely taken control of the game in the second half.
"As a kicker you always dream of those situations, and why some may see it as a high pressure moment, which it is, it's just an awesome privilege to be in that position," Mo'unga said.
Mo'unga hit the kick cleanly, expecting the ball to curve back right but the ball stayed dead straight and missed to the right of the posts.
"That still haunts me as a kicker you know. That could've changed the whole game," he said.
Jordie Barrett's penalty came with seven minutes remaining but again it sailed slightly left, "you just hope that you luck out really and have a pure strike."
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Latest Comments
They would improve a lot of such a scheme were allowed though JD, win win :p
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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