New Zealand Rugby - The Living Dead

By David

Or at least that’s what New Zealand journalists are calling it. For those of you in the United States, who do not know what has happened, the New Zealand rugby team has just been beaten by France in the quarter finals of the World Cup championship. That’s a result about the same as the United States losing to New Zealand in a swim meet. Sure the score was a close 20-18; certainly the referee missed an illegal forward pass that led to the winning French touch down; possibly the sin binning of a New Zealand player for ten minutes was suspect; unquestionably the result was predictable. It was always going to happen; as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Why do we know this? We know this because two of the three coaches, Henry and Smith, are no good. They can’t coach. You would be well justified, at this point, in saying something like, “It’s fine for you to Monday morning quarterback the reasons for New Zealand’s loss. Hind sight has perfect vision.”

But in our case it is not hindsight. You see hidden away in the Swimwatch archives is an article called “Rugby, Racing and Beer”. It was written on June 5 2007. To save you searching through the archives I will quote a few of the predictions we made back then.

“The next World Championships are this year in France. New Zealand will be beaten again.

New Zealand has produced some fearsome competitors. Men and women who it seems have used their home’s smallness to construct an invincible hardness. Sir Edmund Hillary has it. So does Russell Coutts, Brian Lahore, Peter Snell, John Walker, Susan Devoy and quite a few tough and proud others.

Graham Henry and Wayne Smith, the current coaching staff of the All Black team, do not. They fall into a group who are also affected by their nation’s size. A group who when the chips are down, when the rest of the world is stacked against them, choke because they are too small to win.

How do I know this? Two reasons; because they’ve always lost before and they make the classic error of weak people, they change their preparation before the big event. As the World Championships get nearer coaching errors will magnify. Eventually they will be fatal. In the semi-finals or maybe the finals, South Africa, England or, God-save-us, Australia will exploit the indecision and roll past the world’s best rugby team. What is a mystery is why Henry is repeating the errors he made in Wales. It appears he does not understand the logic of Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But he soon will understand.”

Admittedly we did not name the foe that would bring about New Zealand’s passing. The result though, you must admit, is pretty bloody accurate. We still maintain the reasons are equally valid. Some coaches are just not up to the world’s great events. Henry and Smith have blown big ones before. Smith was sitting doing the same job eight years ago when New Zealand last lost to France in the World Cup. Who on God’s earth put him back there to do the same thing again? Oh, of course, it was Graham Henry. Henry had a “big-time” losing record in Wales and some idiot in the New Zealand Rugby Union decided the result would be different if the team he coached wore black instead of red. And that’s real stupid.

Certainly Smith was great in Canterbury and Henry was brilliant in Auckland. They won everything. What they can’t do is beat the world. You see the same thing in swimming. Jan Cameron’s teams will win the New Zealand Swimming Championships forever. She’ll never win you an Olympic title though; she just doesn’t have it. Duncan Lang did; in spades. In Florida you see coaches who are into the High School swimming scene but never attack the Nationals or the Pan Pacific, or Pan American or Olympic Games. They do not have what these events demand.

World class coaches can win State high school events; it’s not all that difficult. High school obsessed coaches will seldom, probably never, win the Olympic Games. The coaching skills and preparation are so different. To win a high school event you can clear-fell an athlete’s talent. And many high school coaches do just that in their head long dash to small time glory. Many parents are into the same juvenile dash and so thoroughly approve of their coach’s mania. To win a world event you need to set aside time to make a contribution to your athlete; over time to build an international career.

So, New Zealand, choose a rugby coach who knows how to win big international events. Here is a prediction from Swimwatch. Pick the other Assistant Coach to Henry, Steve Hansen. We know he was part of the loss to the French but we like him. He’s no County High School coach. He’s the genuine article. We think he’s a winner. Go on, pick the bugger.