A STORM from the south blew into Wellington last night, but it is a depression that emanates from Wales that threatens longer-term damage to New Zealand rugby.

Since they lost to France last October the glowing aura that has enveloped the All Blacks has dulled. In midweek, the folk of Wellington sipped their flat whites without bothering to turn their heads as the squad walked through the hotel lobby en route to training.

Rarely has this legendary team appeared as mortal to the New Zealand public as now. Yesterday was their first outing since that defeat in Cardiff, and while players and coaches claim they have moved on from the World Cup, the damage inflicted on national morale has yet to lift. Two days before the Ireland international, assistant coach Wayne Smith used a television interview to urge All Black supporters to turn up on for the match. Wellington’s stadium has a capacity of 34,500, yet on Saturday morning only 29,000 tickets had been sold. Pathetic. A 50-point victory yesterday would have moved a diehard few. This is a rugby nation so used to winning that only one thing matters, and that is the one thing New Zealand cannot win. The World Cup.

The reaction to failure has scarred a country in which hotel cleaners normally delight in telling you of the indefatigable qualities of their boys. Where once the new cap would be front-page news on the day of the team announcement, now the headlines scream out: ‘A Nation of Porkers’. Rugby is still the No 1 sport, but losing front-page billing to an obesity story represents some decline.

Daniel Carter is the most talked-about man about town but nobody discusses whether he can rediscover the form of 2005 that made him the best back on the planet. Instead debate revolves around his impending move at the end of this international season to France, where it is widely believed either Toulon or Biarritz will secure his services. The present reality of Test rugby is taking second place to the future of the fly-half because of the threat that the move represents to the All Blacks themselves.

The media have tentatively toed the line that his six-month secondment to France, rather than a longer contract, is a triumph for New Zealand. But the smarter Kiwi realises that the tip of the iceberg, glimpsed when the likes of Carl Hayman, Doug Howlett and Luke McAlister left for Europe, is now fully exposed and a titanic rugby nation might just be going under.

‘The new Samoa’ is how one of the country’s most respected rugby writers described the greatest of all rugby countries. Where once the Pacific Island’s best lived and played in New Zealand to secure a better economic future for their families, now New Zealanders are being lured by the 21st-century forces of globalisation. European rugby has the financial clout to tempt the finest. The strength of the euro over the New Zealand dollar is undermining the foundations of the national sport in a manner that no country has ever consistently managed on the field.

Tripping timidly into a frightening future, the supporters have not forgotten the failures of the immediate past. Past and future have collided to create a discordant present beyond my imagination in this once one-eyed rugby land. Last season Graham Henry gambled all on Black. He shot for the pot and lost, but the union has given him and his coaching team another chance while Robbie Deans, the coach of the best provincial team in the world for a decade, the Canterbury Crusaders, has been poached by Australia. The natives are leaning towards rebellion. Super14 crowds have shrunk after the diminution in quality last season when Henry withdrew his World Cup men for the best part of the tournament. Had the gamble paid off, he would have been feted. As it is, he is now vilified for being the latest New Zealand coach to lose the World Cup.

The buzz surrounding the European game must seem deafening in the ears of the All Blacks management. I asked Smith what the team thought of Munster’s victory in the Heineken Cup final. “There was a lot of comment about the passion, the size of the crowds, all the flags, the tribalism, the whole occasion,” he said. “It was a final and they thought the rugby itself pretty tough.”

The players sound almost envious of the occasion. On the same day as 74,625 packed into Cardiff, 25,000 witnessed the Super14 final in Christchurch. Admittedly the ground is being rebuilt, but there is not an atmosphere to come anywhere near the Heineken final in New Zealand.

The sheer distance from the rest of the world has been one of the reasons behind the magnificence of the New Zealand game. But professionalism is stripping that parochial strength in front of their eyes as money finds its way to the places where it most profits.

Devastated by the massive gamble that failed in 2007 and unnerved by Carter’s determination to break ranks, the New Zealand public and press, in the past often little more than a cheerleading department, have fallen out of love with the sport and started to ask heretical questions about their men in black. Yesterday’s Dominion Post, Wellington’s paper of choice, wondered whether New Zealand supporters would cheer Deans and the Wallabies in the forthcoming Tests. In the 16th century, men were burnt at the stake for less.

If New Zealand is to force the public back into the old faithful habit, it requires a great team. With glory being traded for the marketplace, Henry might find such a task tougher than winning that bloody World Cup.