But it was just one good game and the match against England A will be a better test

But it was just one good game and the match against England A will be a better test.”It is rather surprising that Blackadder does not have a nickname like Snake, or Baldrick (the fictional character’s cringeing sidekick), though when you consider his size – 6ft 3in of muscle and bone weighing in at almost 16st – maybe no one dared christen him with anything more frivolous than the one he answers to – the rather tame Toddy.But according to those close to him in the All Blacks squad, Blackadder is something of a character Tame is not a word used to describe him “He has a wry sense of humour,” said one colleague. But they finally clicked and after an hour last Tuesday Emerging England suffered the backlash for those lost 60 minutes.The glow that the performance gave Blackadder certainly was good. “All we were doing was trying to lift our game after an unsatisfactory performance against Wales A.”That performance ended in a 51-8 thrashing by the tourists; the unsatisfactory aspect of the massacre being that it took the All Blacks so long to get going. In fact quite a few of the guys in that side are untried at Test level,” said Blackadder, who captained Canterbury to the Provincial Championship last season. And while the 26-year-old was not prepared quite to admit that they could have run the All Blacks Test team close, or even beaten them, he did concede: “I’d like to think that the midweek team was putting real pressure on the Test team.”But Blackadder shies away from talk of these “Dirt Trackers” being the second best team in the world “I’ve never actually played in a Test. We had Jonah Lomu on one wing, Tana Umaga on the other and Walter Little at second five eighth [inside centre], and he has 44 New Zealand caps, and with players of that calibre we really demanded a big performance of each other.”That is just what they produced.

If this was New Zealand’s Second XV, then there were not many First XVs who could live with them – if any.But the victory, and manner of it, was merely what Blackadder had expected. “Most of the players in the midweek side have been playing in the Super 12 tournament and the national Provincial Championship back home, and they are very tough competitions. And last Tuesday, as Blackadder led his knot of vipers – the midweek All Blacks team – off the pitch at the McAlpine Stadium, Huddersfield, after one of the most complete demolition jobs ever perpetrated against an Emerging England side boasting 12 internationals, he experienced one of the proudest moments of his life.
No one who witnessed the clinical dissection of what was, to all intents and purposes an England A team, was in any doubt. He has heard them all, the jokes, the asides and the smart-arsed one liners; he’s seen the television series (and enjoyed it), and he even has his own customised T-shirt. But the only thing he has in common with the Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson creation is his name – Todd Blackadder. The unalterable fact, however, is that the English game as it is at present structured cannot provide the fully finished article for the international arena Woodward’s honourable confession is only half the story. The real and unpalatable truth is that he was let down by players who are, in turn, being let down by the system which produces them..

One firm of bookmakers, who shall remain nameless for the simple reason that they have very probably gone out of business, were so moved by Hart’s outraged protests over the selection of the England XV at Huddersfield in midweek and the damage they might inflict on his raw and callow recruits that they installed the All Blacks as second favourites. But be honest – you wouldn’t tolerate such a situation in Australia any more than Hart would in New Zealand.Mind you, it doesn’t always pay to take too much heed of our Antipodean cousins. Good on yer, Bob, it’s your job and your loyalty to your club does you credit. On top of that he has been adding substantially to the flood of overseas players in the English game. There’s a big difference with New Zealand – they control the process of fixtures and everything else which enhances the All Blacks.” “Well,” replied the crafty cobber, “that’s not happening here.” Too right it’s not, matey.