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Eddie Jones in attempting to defend Australia's seventh loss in a row said "If you take the scrum out of the equation we played well". To which Aussie journalist Mike Carlton responded "If you take the assassination out of the equation, President and Mrs Kennedy quite enjoyed the drive from Dallas to the Airport". I for one will miss Eddie Jones. A smart, committed, passionate rugby man who was a great innovator. However in today's professional world it's all about results and in the end the Aussies had no choice. It's a tough ask for a new coaching team to get the Aussies ready for 2007 and I am smelling another 1995 when the Wallabies exited in the Quarter Finals. Too many aging stars in the back line and not enough vitality in the tight five. If all goes to plan we should be facing France in the Final which will make Paris and the rugby world come alive with an occasion to match this year's Soccer World Cup Final in Germany. England and South Africa will be very tough as always, but I believe both France and New Zealand are ahead of the pack in building an all-round, fast-paced, modern game with depth in all positions. We'll see. A mouth-watering prospect. Which unfortunately is not the case for our domestic season. Visits from Ireland and Argentina do not set the pulse racing and the extended Tri-Nations with three games against South Africa and Australia has reduced a great challenge to the mundane. This lack of imagination will I believe only lead to more rapid burn-out of our players who will find it hard to be excited by such repetition. Two games against Australia and South Africa are all we need; we need to play Argentina more regularly and France, and I think we should see the Lions more frequently. Woodward tried to do it differently and forgot a key leadership principle; the key to successful change is knowing what not to change. He changed everything and lost all fluency, flow and belief. The Lions' concept though remains a brilliant one. Bring the best of the best from the British Isles every five or seven years, give them a sensible warm-up fixture list, and then throw them at the best of the Southern Hemisphere. It needs sensitive coaching and captaincy, but I simply cannot believe that this is beyond someone's competence. Graham Henry almost achieved it in Australia and the Lions Tour demonstrated that players, spectators and media alike are all looking for imaginative contests to augment the traditional Tri-Nations, Six-Nations and National tours. |
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The biggest single issue facing the IRB in my view is the global season and we need new thinking, a major revamp to keep this great game growing. I have been asked to give the Obolensky Lecture on February 21st and I will be providing The Sunday Times and UK Parliamentary invited audience a "View From The Edge". I shall be sharing with them what I see as the reasons for the All Blacks' success over the years (and the reasons for their failures) with a viewpoint on how to resolve the global season, how to resolve the club versus country conflict and how to continue to develop the game at youth levels everywhere. We hope to air the lecture in New Zealand Rugby World's April edition. (Sir Clive Woodward gave this Lecture in 2005 and look what happened to him! Hopefully I won't end up teaching Southampton soccer players the secrets of high performance in 2006.) In our summer break I had to resort to watching Heineken Cup Rugby on Sky and reading the new rugby books. The Northern Hemisphere rugby was hopeless. Played in cold, dark, wintry conditions, mud up to your arm-pits, and everybody terrified of being knocked out of the Cup or being relegated from the Premier League. It was like watching 1960's attrition rugby all over again. And the new rugby literature didn't provide much more inspiration. November saw the expiry of the Lions' "gagging order" and Brian O'Driscoll was first out of the blocks with his "A Year in the Centre". His Welsh Centre companion Gavin Henson, couldn't wait for the gagging order to be lifted (I'm sure he was underwritten by the tabloids) and he came out before the deadline expired. "My Grand Slam Year" climbed all over Sir Clive Woodward and Henson managed to alienate almost everyone he touched last year (with the exception of his hard-drinking, fast-living, party-loving pop diva girlfriend Charlotte Church). He has a go at Sir Clive, Alastair Campbell, Sir Clive, Brian O'Driscoll for eye-gouging him in a test match, Sir Clive, team-mate Martyn Williams, Sir Clive, Welsh "imports" and team-mates Sonny Parker and Brett Cockbain, oh and did I mention Sir Clive cops a fair bit too. Moffo hauled him into the Millennium Stadium for some mentoring and uncle-like counsel. Jonathan Davies advised him to apologise over lunch. Coach Mike Ruddock has told him to concentrate on playing and start impressing - not depressing - the coaches. And God knows what the angry O'Driscoll is planning for him in Dublin. (Although he may have to climb over Messrs Williams, Parker and Cockbain to get his size 13's onto The Pretty One!) Mr Henson's response? "Eat humble pie? No. I have no regrets. I'll carry on dishing the dirt. I'm just an honest person, maybe a little bit feisty, but I say what's on my mind." |
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And good on him. I loved the book. Loved the stir. Loved the controversy. Loved the honesty. I'm tired of the bland, mishy mash reports, politically correct tomes foisted on us sports lovers by the typical athlete. Give me the full-blooded Justin Marshall / Anton Oliver exposés every time. You don't have to agree with them but they make brilliant reads!! I flatted with Campo in Sydney for two years in the earlier 90's and he was at the leading edge of the 'athlete with a point of view' movement. Even if sometimes he did move mouth without first engaging brain, he made the world of rugby a much more fun place for us fans and tragics. The other book causing a stir is O'Driscoll's "A Year in the Centre" … and doesn't he go on and on about that tackle! "Done in cold blood on my biggest day." Pages and pages about never having been upended like that before in a rugby match (obviously never played School 1st XV in New Zealand), was I speared, I think so, I felt like a drowning man, and then even more about Tana not calling him, Graham Henry lying, Kiwis playing mind games and Kevin Mealamu laughing and grinning throughout. And a paragraph on that insensitive Kiwi specimen; the emergency room nurse who allegedly asked the Great Man for his shirt for her kids or as he puts it "Picking over the bones of the Lions corpse". He then muses about New Zealand in general … "What is wrong with this bloody country? Just start treating me like a human being will you?". He then suggests we do away with the Haka as "The truth is that we understood and respected the Haka a bit better than some of the All Blacks". I held O'Driscoll in the highest regard until the tour and the publication of his book. He has gone on too long, too loudly and too often. Time to move on. Recover. Stop talking. Start playing. Roll on the Super 14. I'm desperate for some real Rugby action.
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