Let’s take a little history tour. The 2003 All Black side was young and inexperienced but coached by a charismatic young ex-player on the way up. The All Blacks met a hugely experienced Wallaby side in the 2003 semi-final and got dicked. We lost it. We choked. We blamed the coach. After all he was drinking with the players for God’s sake! We sacked him and we instantly felt we had lanced the festering boil of failure and were on the road to recovery. We laid down a four year plan to win the next world cup. Good’o, carry on, no worries mate.
Fast forward to October 2007 and we have our new coach and, man-for-man, the best side by far in RWC 2007. This time, however, we perform even worse against lesser opposition. What does the NZ Rugby Union do this time? It re-instates "the coach that did no wrong", the coach that can’t explain the loss except to say “the French played really really well”. Go figure. Well I’ve figured and I am telling you that the reason the NZRFU re-instated Henry is that they were trying to make amends for sacking Mitchell in 2003. Nothing more, nothing less. And this decision also hit a chord with the NZ public for the same reason: atonement for past guilt.
Today Robbie Deans has been announced as the new Wallaby coach. I am in two minds about this appointment. Culturally, Deans is going to find Australia, Australians and coaching the Wallabies a steep learning curve. The Australian psyche is more confident and independent than in New Zealand. Hometown folksiness like Dean’s sending his wife around to a player’s house with scones to welcome him to the team will be met at the very minimum with raised eyebrows and sniggers to outright derision in Australia. This is a country that breeds the very best winners the world has ever known and they tell you about it quite a lot, trust me, I live with them. Humility is not their cup of tea; they feel at home with sarcasm, and, my favourite, “putting shit on people” is a national past time. Dean’s will have heaps piled on him in no time at all given what he's got to work with. He appears to have a more fragile ego than other international coaches and that doesn’t auger well when you are in the land of knockers.
Deans is far better suited to coaching the All Blacks. His loss to New Zealand will be sorely felt but I suspect not as bad as the Australians think it will be for New Zealand. The NZ Rugby Union should avoid the knee-jerk reaction of banning him from the Crusaders, because, as the Chinese general Sun-Tzu wrote, keep your friends close but keep your enemy closer. Deans is now our enemy.
1 comment:
Another superbly written blog..and surely to appear in tommorows Sarturday sports section of the Herald.The comment about Deans possibly not being tough enough is an interesting one.Could he really be a wolf in lambs clothing.I mean you don't get the results he has by pusy footing about and accepting second as a win. Time will tell on this one.That " the art of warfare" is one of the best reads and its good 2cu quoting from it.He was certainly a clever General.
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