Some wise guy once said that the fear of failure is more dreaded than failure itself.

What I discern underlying Fred's article and some of the others on the forum is naked fear. Naturally, given past experience, we are all afraid of the unthinkable happening at the World Cup. And Fred is rationalising that fear with what appear to be perfectly sound arguments for why the All Blacks might stumble again.

Now, I'm as naturally pessimistic as the worst of you. The glass is always half-empty in my pathetic world and the counseling sessions are already booked for October. But that also qualifies me to say that this nervous fretting is totally unproductive. It's like that old piece of wisdom from the perennially doom-laden Woody Allen:

"More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

To borrow another well-worn analogy, we are like fretful photographers, dithering around in the dark room of our fears and developing lots of negatives. We lack depth in key positions, we're not smart enough, the weight of expectations is too great. In attempting to be realistic, we end up being disconsolate.

What would the Australians be like if they thought this way? "We have a lousy forward pack, joke prop forwards, an aging halves combination, we can't win away from home and our coach has absolutely no f***ing idea." Or the South Africans? "We're all biff and no finesse. Our scrum is over-rated and we're one-dimensional on attack. Our selectors are being nobbled by equal opportunity nazis."

You get the idea. The fact is we will never have certainty about anything, in sport or in life. But what we can be certain of is that this All Black team is special. Not every performance is perfect. But there have been enough great performances - against France in Paris, 2004, against The Lions in Wellington, 2005, against France in Lyon, 2006, to suggest they have what it takes to win this World Cup.

I may be defying fate, I may be ratcheting up the eventual bill from the shrink, but I have faith that Richie McCaw and his men will go all the way.

I'll leave you with what another wise man once said:

"There is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings."

Bring it on.