Population

Players native to the Pacific Islands (including New Zealand itself), do give the All Blacks an extra dimension.The Pacific Islanders seem to be able to produce big backline players- that have the skills of a small backline player. 

If we choose a backline player that is 110 KG, it will usually be someone who can't pass, catch or display any rugby skills.If we choose a small backline player, they are unable to tackle the bigger New Zealand backs. 

Other than that- the coaching is clea rly much better- especially the backline coaching. 
The whole team combines as a unit, like an army. It is a coordinated effort that makes planned moves look like training runs. 
New Zealand's game plan revolves around the backs. The forwards role is the first phase, and as fetchers. The game plan is to move the ball from side to side until a gap opens, or a mismatch to break the 1st line of defence.
Having big powerful backs to break the first line of defence- and small fetchers that retain possession.

SB makes a good point....the closest thing to the ABs are the US Marines....it's a culture. A friend of mine was being honored by the Marines and he invited me to the dinner, a vast affair. But the spirit was palpable....humble, collegial, dedicated. That's my sense of the ABs....a unit.

 Misleading.


Of all major rugby countries (probably all rugby countries), ABs are the team with the largest player pool to draw from.

All players in NZ are trained, tutored, drilled to feed one team only: the ABs.
All players are elegible to play in the AB team without questioning much the team cohesion. Players'personal play style do not interfer as from the start they are conceived to work together.

One expression of it is that NZ could field maybe four duplicate teams, all showing similar features in play.

The system works in reverse in what happens elsewhere with players being trained to feed clubs and later reunited into an international selection.
Which leads to interferences, players are not forcefully (and quite often are) complementary and must learn to play how to play together once in a selection.

A selection like the B&I lions, despite the quality of their players, can not achieve this. Those players, contrary to NZ, are trained disunitedly and must learn to be united.

NZ would quickly fail if they had to sustain a rugby economy, meaning their training system had to support more than one team (franchises are only degraded versions of the ABs)

A one team rugby team economy is not sustainable, it has to be supported by somebody else.
 

Population size doesn't mean much when, as in South Africa, black generally don't play the game.Genes play an important role. Pygmies wont shape in basket ball no matter how much affirmative action takes place. Kenyans are superb long distance runners etc etc. No use denying the very obvious.I believe there are some very fast black backs around. Faster than anything NZ have. These guys must be brought through the ranks. The Afrikaner have over the years also produced great back and the best forwards in the world.What rugby desperately needs, apart from the adoption of the merit principle, is the brain power to put in place the right policies and strategies. Rugby in SA is a mess.
A ship without a rudder. Amateurish. 

 What a tale it would be if there was no other countries.

There are more black people playing rugby in SA than there are in other big rugby countries.

Yet SA is the major one that failed to produce any decent non white player.

England has brought one guy who gains a slot in their team regularly without being boosted.

SA, despite being a sub par team, has no equivalent.

For SA, it is over. Tale after tale, not enough.

 For me it is down to culture, roll models (aspiration) and opportunity.Think back to the pre New SA days. The white population was 5ish million. Almost every Afrikaans school junior and high played rugby a lesser number of English schools played rugby so the pool to draw from was maybe 4.5 million. In those days we had the wood on all other countries including the AB's. I am not saying I want to return to those days but watering down the pool and not maintaining a selection standard has been a disaster.FFS the ANC have not done even the basics. There is nothing at grassroots. They are all too being the fat pigs that they are stuffing themselves at the trough.

 NZ has a relatively small player pool ,fewer registered players than France or England even Australia.I think its having players moulded from schoolkids on up and all using the same song sheet helps ,everything is ultimately about the ABs once you get to Mitre cup level the rest is about building fun ,culture and involvement in rugby.

 Let's not forget that rugby is NZ's national sport and it doesn't suffer a great deal of competition from league or cricket like it does in Oz and SA. Also the foundation for their rugby culture and pattern of play was set in stone many moons ago....Brian Lachore said we are committed to playing 15 man rugby after a losing tour in the republic.
They didn't suffer 25 years of rugby isolation either.

 Denny in a rugby mad country in the 70s I would play rugby f or our school and League for the town [ and to keep my old man happy !]In a town of just 1300 people we had 3 League and 3 rugby teams ,this includes farmers and their kids too but still just shows ya eh wot ?