CHRIS HEWETT
GUEST COLUMNIST
It seemed like a joke worth telling. “What’s the difference between the All Blacks and an arsonist?”, your columnist asked the presenter of a New Zealand radio sports show in the dying weeks of 1998. “Not a clue,” came the reply. “Well…no arsonist would ever lose his last five matches.”
For some peculiar reason, laughter was conspicuous by its absence. The only noise detectable across the airwaves was the dull splat of a failed punchline landing on stony ground.
New Zealand rugby folk, who make up 99.999 per...