Welcome to today's deep dive. We are so thrilled
to have you joining us. We really are. Whether
you're prepping for a big meeting or commuting
or you're just incredibly curious about how the
world works, you found exactly the right place.
Absolutely. Today, we have a story that is going
to... really challenge the way you think about
strategy, about innovation, and shaking up the
status quo? We certainly do. And to get us there,
we are looking at a really comprehensive piece
of source material. Right. It's a wonderfully
detailed historical overview via Wikipedia of
the 1905 to 1906 rugby tour by the team that
would become known globally as the original All
Blacks. The mission for today's deep dive is
simple. But the scope of it is enormous. We're
going to explore how a single rugby team traveling
from the bottom of the globe to the northern
hemisphere didn't just play a game. No, they
didn't. They completely redefined an entire sport.
And they set a standard of excellence that has
endured for well over a century. Okay, let's
unpack this. Because the final numbers of this
tour are, frankly, hard to wrap your head around.
They really are. Imagine you go on a road trip
across the world. You play 35 highly competitive
matches against the best teams on the planet.
Out of those 35 matches, they won 34. 34 wins.
Yeah, and they scored 976 points while conceding
and get this only 59. It is a staggering statistic.
I mean, when you look at that point differential,
976 to 59, you aren't just looking at a team
that was a little bit better than their opponents.
Not at all. You are looking at a team that was
playing an entirely different game than everyone
else on the pitch. Hold on, though. Point differential
is one thing, but how does a team from a small
colony cross the globe and actually achieve that
kind of total dominance? Right. To understand
that, we have to start at the very beginning.
Picture this. It's 19 to 5. The selectors in
New Zealand start with a sprawling 53 -man squad.
A massive group. They whittle that down to 16
certainties, and finally, a 27 -man squad boards
a ship called the Rimutaka on July 30, 1905.
And for you listening, keep in mind, this isn't
a quick 14 -hour flight like we have today. Right,
no airplanes. This is a grueling, weeks -long
ocean voyage across the globe. Just stuck on
a boat. Exactly. That is a crucial piece of context.
You have athletes stuck on a ship for weeks.
When they finally arrive in Plymouth, England
in early September, they set up their training
base in a town called Newton Abbot. They don't
have months to acclimatize to the weather or
the time zone. Their very first match is scheduled
for September 16th against Devon. Which was not
an easy debut. Not at all. Devon was no warm
-up team. They were the runners -up in the most
recent English county championship. Wow. And
even more intimidating for a touring side, their
roster featured 10 players from Devonport Albion,
which was the top club in England at the time.
So naturally... Devin goes into this match as
the clear favorites. Of course. The local crowd
of about 6 ,000 people shows up expecting to
see these colonial upstarts get taught a swift
lesson by the English masters of the game. That
was the expectation. But what actually happens
is a complete slaughter. The All Blacks win 55
-4. Incredible. They score 12 tries. And if you're
not a rugby follower, a try is basically their
version of a touchdown, where you physically
ground the ball in the end zone to score the
bulk of your points. Yeah, 12 of those in one
game is absurd. We also have to highlight a player
named Billy Wallace, who scored 28 points all
by himself in that single game. 28 points. That
is a scoring record. that stood untouched for
51 years. It was such a comprehensive dismantling
of a top tier English side. I literally couldn't
believe it. The result defied their entire understanding
of the sports hierarchy. It was so unbelievable
that British newspapers actually reported it
as a typo. Yes. They printed the result as Devon
55, New Zealand 4. Because they assumed the telegraph
operator had made a catastrophic error. They
couldn't fathom losing like that. They had to
issue retractions and corrections later when
they realized the truth. And when the New Zealanders
got back to their base at Newton Abbot, they
were greeted by a brass band and a cheering crowd.
They had officially arrived. But the question
you really have to ask is why? How does a team
from the colonies completely dismantle the inventors
of the game? Right. It wasn't just luck, and
it wasn't just that they were physically larger
men. Not at all. What's fascinating here is the
scientific approach the All Blacks brought to
the sport. You played smart. They really did.
They didn't just play hard. They played smart.
Let's look at their structural innovations, starting
with the scrum. For you listening, the scrum
is that moment where the big forwards pack together
and push against the other team to restart the
game. A huge mess of bodies pushing. Exactly.
At the time, the standard British formation for
a scrum was 3 -2 -3. That's three players in
the front row, two in the second, three in the
back. The All Blacks introduced a 2 -3 -2 scrum.
And it wasn't just the shape of the scrum that
was different. It was the entire philosophy behind
how it functioned. Yes. Our sources highlight
that the British teams operated on a first -up,
first -down mentality. It was essentially like
a pickup basketball game. Just jump in wherever.
Right. If you were the first forward to arrive
at the scrum, you just took the first available
spot, whether you were suited for it or not.
It was incredibly disorganized. Yeah. But the
All Blacks assigned specific predetermined roles
to their forwards. Every man knew exactly where
he belonged in the scrum, regardless of when
he arrived at the mark. Like specialists. Precisely.
This meant they were functioning like a highly
specialized assembly line. They were a cohesive
unit pushing together, which completely disrupted
the disorganized British packs. And they didn't
stop at the forwards. They also invented entirely
new positions. They did. The All Blacks utilized
something called the Five Eights. Yes, the Five
Eights. In standard British rugby at the time,
you had a halfback and you had three quarters.
The all blacks put players right in between them,
the five eighths. Brilliant move. Think of it
like reorganizing a corporate flow chart. They
found the white space on the field that the British
weren't using and filled it. And it worked. It
created an immense defensive advantage, clogging
up the midfield and shutting down opposition
attacks before they even had a chance to develop.
We also have to talk about their fitness and
overall philosophy. Oh, definitely. In New Zealand,
domestic club matches were played with 45 -minute
halves. In Britain, halves were only 35 minutes
long. 10 extra minutes per half. So the All Blacks
effectively had superior endurance baked into
their daily routines. They were conditioned to
run harder for a much longer period of time.
Plus, they expected everyone on the field to
be an attacker. Right. The British press was
shocked to see the All Blacks fullback actively
running up the field and joining the attack.
It was unheard of. Traditionally, the fullback
was viewed strictly as a defensive safety net.
Almost like a soccer goalie. Just standing at
the back. But the All Blacks believed every single
player on the pitch should be available to take
a pass and advance the ball. Yeah. It was total
rugby. Decades ahead of its time. Now, whenever
you introduce a revolutionary style of play,
it naturally creates friction. Always. If we
connect this to the broader context of the tour,
you can see how differently this team was received
depending on the specific culture of the host
nation. Yeah, the contrast between their reception
in Scotland and the reception in Ireland is the
perfect case study. It really is. Oh, the Scotland
leg of the tour is fascinating. You've got this
unstoppable, highly entertaining rugby machine
rolling into town. And the Scottish Rugby Union,
the SRU, basically gives them the cold shoulder.
And just as a quick reminder to you listening,
when our sources dive into these upper class
versus working class dynamics of 1905 Britain,
we're just reporting the historical viewpoints
presented in the texts, not endorsing them. Right.
Just looking at the history. But according to
the historical record, the SRU was notoriously
conservative. At the time, rugby in Scotland
was very much a game of the upper classes. Very
exclusive. They believed the sport should remain
strictly amateur, played purely for the love
of the game. They were actively uncomfortable
with the immense working class public interest
that the All Blacks were generating. They didn't
like the crowds. Exactly. They felt rugby was
for the players, not the spectators. If you've
ever dealt with stubborn corporate bureaucracy,
You'll recognize exactly what the SRU did next.
Oh, it's classic. They did everything they could
to make the All Blacks feel unwelcome. Yeah.
The pitch in Edinburgh was icy, and the SRU hadn't
even bothered to lay down protected straw the
night before, which was standard practice at
the time to keep the ground soft. The game was
almost canceled over it. But my favorite petty
detail from the sources is the post -match dinner.
The All Blacks had sent a politely worded letter
implying they didn't want a huge fuss made over
them. Just trying to be humble. Right. The SRU
interpreted that letter entirely literally and
used it as an excuse to simply not invite the
New Zealand team to the official post -match
dinner at all. So petty. There was also a significant
financial dispute bubbling under the surface.
Always about money. Always. The New Zealand Rugby
Football Union had originally asked the SRU for
a 500 -pound guarantee to play the match. The
SRU, claiming poor finances, offered the entire
gate receipt instead, minus their expenses. Which
totally backfired on them. Exactly, because the
public demand to see the All Blacks was so incredibly
high, the gate ended up being over 1 ,700 pounds.
A fortune at the time. A massive amount. While
the SRU was fine with this arrangement initially,
they threw a fit when they found out the All
Black players were receiving a daily allowance
of three shillings from their own union for incidental
expenses. Three shillings a day. The SRU viewed
this allowance as a direct breach of amateurism.
Despite the icy pitch and all that boardroom
drama, the match itself was a nail -biter. Scotland
actually led 7 -6 near the end of the game. It
was the very first time on the entire tour that
the All Blacks found themselves trailing. But
in true All Black fashion, they scored a try
with four minutes left and another with seconds
remaining to pull off a 12 -7 win. Now contrast
that. icy bureaucratic reception in Scotland
to what happened when they crossed the Irish
Sea. It's night and day. Totally. The Irish Rugby
Football Union couldn't have been more welcoming.
When the team arrived in Belfast, Irish officials
were waiting right at the train station to take
them out for a warm breakfast. Proper hospitality.
Later, when they traveled to Dublin, thousands
of people crowded the station to cheer their
arrival. The Thursday before the test match,
The two teams actually went to the theater together.
I love that detail. They sat alternately, one
Irish player, one New Zealand player, one Irish
player, just so they could mix and get to know
each other on a human level. It was also a deeply
personal leg of the tour for the All Blacks captain
Dave Gallagher. Oh, right. Gallagher was actually
born in County Donegal in Ireland and had moved
to New Zealand with his family when he was four
years old. Wow. So this was a true homecoming
for him, though an injury unfortunately kept
him from playing in the actual test match against
Ireland. Even without their captain on the pitch,
the All Blacks dominated, winning 15 to 0. Easily.
Which brings us to England. And if you want to
talk about scale, the England test is where this
tour turns from a sporting event into a full
-blown cultural phenomenon. The match was held
at Crystal Palace in London. The official capacity
of the venue was 50 ,000. Okay. But the interest
was so overwhelming that an estimated 100 ,000
people attended. A bubble of a capacity. A bubble.
That crowd included the Prince of Wales, who
would later become King George V. This was an
unprecedented record for any rugby or football
match in London at the time. Wait, 100 ,000 people?
In 1905? Yes. Imagine you're standing on a pitch
far from home and the population of a small city
is staring down at you. It's terrifying. The
logistics of cramming double the capacity into
that venue must have been wild. Yeah. But the
All Blacks didn't fold under the pressure they
put on a show. They certainly did. The star of
the day was an All Black winger named Duncan
McGregor. He scored four tries in that test match.
Four tries. To put that in perspective, that
record of four tries by an all -black in a single
test wasn't equaled until 1987. That is amazing.
That is 82 years of rugby history. where nobody
could touch duncan mcgregor's performance at
crystal palace the final score was 15 to 0 for
the all blacks yeah and it was after this match
that cb fry a very prominent english sportsman
of the era summed up the tour perfectly what
did he say He wrote, the notion that these men
beat us because of our physical degeneracy is
nonsense. They beat us by organization and by
tactics. I love that quote. That's so awesome.
He completely strips away the excuses. They weren't
beaten by magical giants. They were beaten by
a smarter system. And there's an incredible relic
from this match that still exists today. The
referee for that England game was a man named
Gil Evans. His whistle from that day is now housed
at the New Zealand Rugby Museum. But it doesn't
just sit in a glass case gathering dust. That
exact same whistle is used to start the opening
match of every single rugby World Cup tournament
today. That is just a wonderful physical connection
to a tour that fundamentally changed the sport.
It really is. But for all their tactual brilliance
and dominance, the original All Blacks were not
invincible. No, they weren't. Which brings us
to December 16th, 1905, Hardiff Arms Park. The
match against Wales. Game of the century. The
lone loss of the entire tour. Let's set the scene.
47 ,000 rabid fans packed into Cardiff. And the
atmosphere before the game even starts is highly
historic. It truly was. The All Blacks took the
field and performed their traditional haka, as
they always did. The crowd watched in respectful
silence, but the moment the New Zealanders finished,
the Welsh crowd, led by one of the Welsh players,
erupted into their national anthem, Land of My
Fathers. Think about every time you go to a ball
game today, or tune into the Olympics, you expect
to hear a national anthem. It's standard now.
But according to the historical record, this
moment in Cardiff was the very first time a national
anthem was ever sung before a sporting fixture.
It started right there. As a spontaneous emotional
response to the haka. The tension was incredibly
high, partly because there had been a profound
dispute over the referee leading up to the match.
Right. The All Blacks manager, George Dixon,
and the Welsh rugby union could not agree. Dixon
rejected all the Welsh options. The Welsh rejected
all of Dixon's options. A complete stalemate.
Eventually, the rules dictated that the Scottish
Rugby Union had to appoint a neutral referee,
and they sent a Scotsman named John Dallas. And
once the game actually started, it became very
clear that Wales had done their homework. Remember
that highly efficient 2 -3 -2 scrum we talked
about? The assembly line. The assembly line that
had been destroying English teams. Well, Wales
figured out how to counter it. They did. The
Walsh team used a traditional three -man front
row, but they completely changed their timing.
They deliberately waited to set their front row
until after the All Blacks had set theirs. Oh,
wow. By doing this, they prevented the All Blacks
from gaining the loose head. And what does that
mean exactly? That basically means the advantageous
position to strike or hook the ball backward
with their feet when it's thrown into the middle
of the scrum. Got it. Every time the All Blacks
tried to hook the ball, they were penalized by
the referee. It got so bad that the all -black
captain, Dave Gallagher, actually ordered his
team to stop contesting the scrums entirely and
just let Wales win the ball. It was a tactical
masterstroke by Wales. Yeah. They used the all
-black's rigid system against them. Wales scored
a try to go up 3 -0. Yeah. But the real drama,
the moment that people are still arguing about
over a century later. Happened in the second
half. The famous try. The All Blacks break through
the line. Yeah. The ball gets passed to Bob Deans.
He is tackled right on or right next to the Welsh
try line. And this is the great controversy of
the tour. Bob Deans went to his grave claiming
that he had grounded the ball over the line for
a try and that he was dragged back out of the
end goal area by the Welsh defenders before the
referee arrived. Of course, the Welsh players
claimed they tackled him short of the line. Naturally.
And the referee, John Dallas. awarded a scrum
to Wales instead of a try to New Zealand. The
3 -0 score stood. It was their only loss in 35
matches. Heartbreaking for them? Very. After
the emotional toll of the Welsh leg of the tour,
they crossed the English Channel for a New Year's
Day match on January 1st against France in Paris.
This was another historic milestone for the sport.
It was France's first ever official test match.
The huge deal for France. The All Blacks won
comfortably 38 -8, though France scoring eight
points was actually a major point of pride as
it matched the highest score any British team
had managed against the tourists. After the France
game, the team was understandably exhausted.
I mean, yeah. They had played over 30 grueling
matches in just a few months. They just wanted
to go home. I would, too. But New Zealand's prime
minister, Richard Seddon, realized what incredible
global ambassadors he had on his hands. So what
did he do? He essentially forced the team to
take a massive detour on their way back. Instead
of sailing straight home, they went through North
America, playing exhibition matches in New York
and California, winning easily and spreading
the gospel of rugby to a completely new continent.
It cemented their legacy not just as a great
rugby team, but as a global sporting phenomenon
that could draw crowds. Anywhere in the world.
Absolutely. So what does this all mean for you?
Why are we sitting here talking about a rugby
tour from 19 to 5? It's a great question. Because
this story is the ultimate masterclass in challenging
the established order. Think about the last time
you tried to change a process at work. It's hard.
The British teams had the first up, first down
mentality. They did things the way they had always
been done, relying on tradition and individual
talent. The All Blacks looked at the exact same
game and applied meticulous organization, predetermined
roles and superior physical conditioning. They
didn't just try harder. They designed a better
system. Exactly right. Whether you are leading
a team, building a business, or just trying to
improve a routine in your own life, the original
All Blacks prove that systemic organization and
innovative thinking will almost always defeat
unorganized tradition. That is a brilliant takeaway,
and it actually raises an important question,
something for you to mull over after we wrap
up today. What's that? Remember that intense
drama in Scotland over the players receiving
three shillings a day? Yeah, the SRU throwing
a fit? Right. The conservative officials were
terrified of the sport becoming professional.
Well, just a couple of years after this triumphant
tour, several of these exact same all -black
players defected. Really? Yes. They joined a
fully professional tour in 1907 and 1908, playing
what would become rugby league, where they were
actually paid for their skills. Oh, wow. I didn't
realize the time. It was immediate. So the question
for you to consider is, did the undeniable excellence
of the original All Blacks actually break the
amateur model? That's fascinating. Did they prove
through their immense crowd appeal and strategic
brilliance that they were simply too valuable
to be expected to play for free? It's entirely
possible that the birth of professionalized rugby
was the inevitable consequence of this supposedly
amateur team being so incredibly good at what
they did. Excellence demands its worth. What
a fascinating way to look at it. Thank you so
much for joining us on this journey today. We
hope you are walking away with a new appreciation
for the power of strategy, meticulous preparation,
and a willingness to question how things have
always been done. Keep questioning the status
quo, keep learning, and we will catch you on
the next deep dive.