Caravan must move on.

Like most New Zealanders, I was gutted by the All Black's failure in the recent Rugby World Cup final. I have expressed my views publicy that it was a leadership failure on the field. It was clear to me that the All Blacks were not used to being in a losing position, and no strong leader stepped forward in this sudden-death crisis situation. There was no Ernest Shackleton to lead and rescue the team. In the article posted below, Spiro Zavos calls for the resignation of Graham Henry to resign and for Robbie Deans (pictured above) to replace him. This is sound logic and at this point I rest my case and close on the debate for the 2007 RWC.

Caravan must move on - so must Henry
By SPIRO ZAVOS - The Dominion Post | Friday, 26 October 2007

When Alan Jones coached the Wallabies and his team was beaten he would say: "The dogs are barking but the caravan moves on." It's a useful mantra for New Zealand rugby.


First, the barking. I supported Graham Henry from the time of his appointment as All Blacks coach. So these thoughts about the 2007 RWC failure are hindsight reflections.

It is clear the reconditioning programme failed. The All Blacks were not noticeably bigger or faster than their opponents in the World Cup. Players were injured, like Jerry Collins, who rarely get injured.

I was told by someone who knew what he was saying that players complained of being tired after their reconditioning. Also, by taking them out of the Super 14 for six matches, Henry ensured that they played too few matches in 2007. Senior players were lucky if they played 12 matches this year. They were underdone for the quarterfinal against France.

The rotation policy was fine, up to the end of 2006. Henry promised it would not be put in place in 2007. But even in the tournament it was maintained. Henry should have played his main side three times in the pool rounds, as the Springboks did. J P Pietersen played every minute of the tournament. Most of the Springboks played all their matches.

This is all hindsight, of course. While journalists are expected to be prophets of the past, coaches are paid to get it right. Graham Henry did not. Jake White, probably an inferior coach, did.

Enough of the barking. Now for the caravan moving on.

Those of us who endured the last two weeks in Paris without a New Zealand or Australian side to support cannot understand the polls that show Kiwis want Henry to continue. Those grumpy All Blacks fans stranded in Paris, if my chats to them are any indication, would vote to move Henry on, say to a director of coaching job for the NZRU.

It is so obvious that the next All Blacks coach should be Robbie Deans that John O'Neill, the perceptive boss of the ARU, has been trying to get in first and snatch him away from New Zealand rugby. Players who excelled under Deans have played poorly this year for the All Blacks. Daniel Carter is a case in point. Deans has created a winning style of play. He has the knack of getting his teams up for must-win games as the Crusaders' success shows.

The best-qualified New Zealand coach, in terms of success in his coaching career, should be All Blacks coach. That was Graham Henry in 2004. It is Robbie Deans in 2008.

South Africa the best ?

I got up just before 2 a.m. Jakarta time to watch the match. In some respects, I wish I had of stayed in bed. No tries, and an old style kicking game. Not the type of match that will have children round the world asking Santa Claus fof rugby balls instead of the latest video game or Barbie doll.

I enjoyed the closing ceremony and the presentation the most.
There were long banners in South Africa's colours and scintillating fireworks. The Springboks lifted President Mbeki up onto their shoulders where he gleefully brandished the cup aloft. And then they went skipping about Stade de France, showing off the Webb Ellis Cup while South Africans cheered in Paris and many other cities and dorps about the world.

Throughout the length and breadth of South Africa shouts resounded that were part joy and part relief because, heavens, it was close. Car horns blared, toasts were drunk, cheering and laughter broke out, revelry was on the cards - it was the biggest national party since 26 June 1995.


Congratulations South Africa. You have the William Webb Ellis trophy for four years.

I thought Victor Mafield was the most outstanding player on the field and deserved man-of-match.

I wonder what thoughts ran through All Black coach Graham Henry's head as he watched the final early moning in New Zealand. I hope he learned that rugby is about doing the basics well and moulding a group of talented players into a team, a strong, cohesive unit. Henry to my mind put too much emphasis on the sizzle of the game, and not enough on the basic ingredients.

Ah, well I think I will watch Lewis Hamilton win the world Formula One title this eveing and give rugby a break for a while.

Our Gods fell to earth

Joe Rokocoko's worst fears are realised at the World Cup.









I was stunned this morning. How did an invincible team like the All Blacks get beaten ? I have been crowing on my blog and to friends about how the All Blacks would win the rugby world cup this year.

Our Gods fell to earth in Cardiff. They are men after all.

The best rugby writer of all, David Kirk explains the hurt, the pain many of us are going through but asks us to spare a thought for the players and management.:

The All Blacks didn't play badly, but they didn't play well enough. For long periods of this test match they played better rugby than any other team in the competition is remotely possible of playing.

Their ball retention, their pace and audacity was often a joy. That they couldn't turn this into points and a comfortable victory was a testament to the sustained intensity of the French defence and their own inability to stop trying to create the perfect form of rugby and just win the match.

It is unbelievably frustrating to sit here in Cardiff and review this match.

If you look at the All Black scrum it was clearly superior to the French scrum. The lineout functioned well and the continuity play was excellent.

Kelleher played as well as I have seen him play. Carter in the first half was all class, making the right decisions, kicking well, firing out his flat passes, putting McAllister into the gap for his try.

Collins, McCaw and Soalio clearly outplayed their opposite numbers and while they had few real opportunities the outside backs did all that was asked of them.

No one played badly. If no one plays badly in a great All Black team they should win. But they didn't.

The glory of sport. The despair of not knowing what more you could have done.

It is not fair to quibble about selections after a match like this. Who knows what other players would have done in the same circumstances?

It is to my mind true to say however that the rotation policy has not worked the way the coaches and selectors would have liked.

For all the endless hours of training and honing of different combinations so they work on the field, some combinations simply work better than others. Some players simply gell in a way that means the pass sticks or the gap is found or the better decision is made.

With the margin of error so fine at World Cups it is the team management's responsibility to find those combinations and stick with them. I am old-fashioned I know, and really a long way from the intensity and nuances of professional rugby, but I think playing the best team regularly is important. It is possible to have too much talent.

France certainly played well.

The brought a simple game plan to Cardiff and a lot of heart.

They picked a fullback who could kick the ball back and a forward pack that would compete everywhere. They were particularly effective on their feet driving lineouts and mauls and in stifling the All Black midfield.

Perhaps most impressive of all was their lack of mistakes. They were under the hammer time and time again in the second half and they held their nerve. No penalties, no cheap points.

It is a shame that the match turned on refereeing decisions. Wayne Barne's decision to show McAllister a yellow card and his missing of the clear forward pass which led to France's final try determined the outcome of the match.

The players deserve better than to have refereeing decisions determine the outcome of matches.

But the All Blacks always knew they would be refereed more closely than other teams at the World Cup.

It comes from setting the pace. If you are doing things faster and better than other teams, referees will always be looking to see if there is some judgement they can make on this seemingly superior ability.

Did the All Blacks adapt effectively to the circumstances of the match? Could they have done more?

The answer is yes but there is no one area of the game, no easy, obvious lack of quality or technique to put our fingers on.

They could have kicked the ball out more often when the French returning was proving effective. They could have given themselves more targets to drive on in midfield, taking the French midfield backs out of play and leaving forwards to defend. They could have used more inside balls.

All perfectly clever in hindsight but all counting for nothing.

In my view this group of young men deserved better.

They did the work, they thought the thoughts. They were ready but when their hour came round at last it was not to be.

Many will not get a chance to play in a World Cup again. So if you think you are in pain, frustrated and sad, think about what this All Black team and management must be going through.

In the end their only failure was in their collective lack of capacity to kill a match stone dead when ahead.

No doubt this is a lot harder under modern laws than it used to be.

And for this All Black team we may well ask, is it a failure to want to stop playing? Is it a failure to want to embrace a style of rugby that is nerveless and an aspiration to play a game that is beyond what has gone before.

The answer is no for gods and yes for men.

Unfortunately in Cardiff our gods became men.

Michael Jones still the best

I have written at least twice about Michael Jones being an outstanding rugby player, a fine human being and a role model for young and old alike. He is currently coach of the Samoan rugby team which played gallantly against England last night.

I came across this article this morning. Brilliantly written Tony Smith.



Was fellow All Blacks flanker and now Samoan coach Michael Jones a better player than Richie McCaw is?

When the greatest player in rugby union history says the game is getting too soft it's time for the powers-that-be to set down the gin tumblers and take notice.
Michael Jones, the All Blacks' all-time best and now Samoa coach, says if the trend towards sanitising the sport continues, he'll encourage his son to play rugby league.
Jones the Christian who once quipped that he tackled so hard because he had been taught that it was "better to give than to receive" says he would probably consider playing league too if he was still pulling on a pair of boots now.
The Iceman's utterance on the eve of the all-important Samoa-England World Cup clash was seized upon by genuflecting English pressmen with all the reverence of an epistle from the Archbishop of Canterbury's lips.
And quite right too. Jones is revered by rugby people throughout the world.
Which begs the question why is he not accorded the status he deserves in his own land?
New Zealanders still cling to the myth that Colin Meads is our greatest All Black. Pinetree was a true totem, a legend when the All Blacks pack was feared throughout the world. No one wishes to belittle his feat of 55 tests across 14 seasons. His longevity, his toughness, and his athletic ability with the ball curled up in that massive mitt, was a sight to behold.
But nostalgia is a powerful drug. Once it has you hooked, it's desperately difficult to kick.
It is now 20 years since the 1987 All Blacks revolutionised rugby on their way to winning the inaugural world cup. Footage of that first tournament has been aired more often this month than a politician's dirty linen. The re-runs show Michael Jones at his mercurial best before the tragic knee injury which reduced him from superhuman to the ranks of mere mortal.
Richie McCaw is a modern-day marvel on the openside flank and better at the breakdown than Jones. But for sheer skill, pace, eye for a gap and thunderous tackling, no one before or since comes within cooee of the softly-spoken West Aucklander.
Jones, who also played 55 tests spread across 12 seasons, was so good he could have played for the All Blacks at second five-eighths or centre.
Even Will Carling, the ex-England captain and centre acknowledged as much in rating Jones as No2 behind 1970s Welsh halfback Gareth Edwards in his best 50 rugby players of all-time in a recent Daily Telegraph newspaper promotion.
Meads was 14th behind Jonah Lomu (4th) and Zinzan Brooke (9th) but ahead of Sean Fitzpatrick (18th), Buck Shelford (22nd), Dan Carter (23rd) and McCaw (27th).
While Meads' status in many Kiwis' eyes is clearly based on his playing feats, he has also been venerated for the image he projects as a rugged rural man of the land, the "Man Alone" laconic cocky with a fence post balanced on one shoulder and a sheep slung over the other, the type of bloke you'd like to have a beer with.
By contrast, Jones is a deeply religious, abstemious, university-educated Samoan New Zealander from suburban West Auckland, a true Pacific community leader, a representative of the new New Zealand. His celebrity has been confined to the sports pages. There has never been a whiff of controversy around his career.
Kiwis also like Meads because he has been a bit of a character. The King Country lock was sent off against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1967 and was involved in a couple of other unsavoury incidents in internationals. He was a New Zealand Rugby Union councillor when he unwisely travelled as manager of the rebel Cavaliers tour to South Africa in 1986 in defiance of a High Court ban. Yet it says much for Meads' mana and rugby's redemptive qualities that he was welcomed back into the fold after a brief penance and went on to manage the All Blacks at the 1995 world cup.
Meads has also made a significant contribution off the football field in his King Country region, in particular through his championing of the IHC fundraising cause.
Yet in terms of rugby role models there is none better than Michael Niko Jones, who has done much to advance the Pacific New Zealanders' cause.
Throughout his long career he stuck steadfastly to his stance of never playing on Sundays. Whether it was for Waitemata or the All Blacks, he remained true to his principles.
His beliefs were universally respected but came at some cost. Jones was unable to play in the 1991 Rugby World Cup final against Australia in Dublin. Would the Wallabies have won had he been in the No7 jersey instead of Mark Carter?
He was also omitted from the 1995 world cup squad because several Sunday matches were scheduled for the South African tournament. Would the All Blacks have lost to South Africa in the final staged on a Saturday, incidentally with Jones at No6 in the backrow beside Zinzan Brooke and Josh Kronfeld?
Meads deserves respect for his durability and his ability to play through the pain barrier. Who can forget his battle to play with a broken arm in South Africa in 1970?
Jones's genius was unprecedented before his knee collapsed at ruck against Argentina at Athletic Park in 1989. It was the kind of injury which would have ended the career of a less committed player.
Yet Jones sought the best surgeon he could find and proved a model patient through a painstaking rehab.
He was back on the All Blacks' flank 18 months later and reinvented himself from the world's best openside to the top blindside flanker of the early 1990s.
Yes, Michael Jones is still the best rugby player New Zealand has seen and it is no surprise to see his views on the sport treated with the solemnity of the Sermon on the Mount.



By TONY SMITH in Edinburgh - Fairfax Media Sunday, 23 September 2007

That fearsome Haka

Many of you will have watched the All Blacks beat Italy last night, and I wonder how many of you saw the traditional and sacred Haka. What is the significance of the Haka ?

The Te Rauparaha Haka is the most common, but since 2005 there is another version, the Kapa o pango Haka:

These are the words of the Te Rauparaha Haka:

Before the Haka is performed by the team, the Haka leader, normally an All Black of Maori descent, will instigate the Haka and spur on those who are to perform the Haka with the following.

Ringa pakia
Uma tiraha
Turi whatia
Hope whai ake
Waewae takahia kia kino

Then the team starts the Haka as a group,

Ka mate Ka mate
It is death It is death
Ka ora Ka ora
It is life
It is life
Ka mate Ka mate
It is death It is death
Ka ora Ka ora
It is life It is life
Tenei Te Tangata Puhuruhuru
This is the hairy man
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Upane Upane
Up the ladder Up the ladder
Upane Kaupane
Up to the top
Whiti te ra
The sun shines!

The haka is a war dance. The words are chanted loudly (shouted) in a menacing way accompanied by arm actions and foot stamping. A haka was traditionally performed before charging into battle.
The Maori pronunciation is basically one vowel per syllable, with the vowels having the European rather than English sound. The `wh' is aspirated almost like an `f' (f is good enough for most people).
As for what it all means, about 140 years ago, a great chief named Te Rauparaha of the Ngati Toa tribe (based just North of present day Wellington), was being chased by his enemies. He hid in a kumara pit (the local sweet potato) and waited in the dark for his pursuers to find him. He heard sounds above and thought he was done for when the top of the pit was opened up and sunshine flooded in. He was blinded and struggled to see those about to slay him, when his sight cleared and he instead saw the hairy legs of the local chief (reputed to have been exceptionally hirsute) who had hid him. Te Rauparaha is said to have jumped from the pit and performed this haka on the spot, so happy was he to have escaped.


Kapa o pango haka:

This haka was first performed by the All Blacks versus South Africa on 27 August 2005 at Carisbrook, Dunedin. The All Blacks won 31 - 27. This haka was written by Ngati Porou's Derek Lardelli. This haka will only be performed before special test matches.Kapa o pango kia whakawhenua au i ahau!Let me become one with the land

Hi aue, hi! Ko Aotearoa e ngunguru nei!
This is our land that rumbles
Au, au, aue ha!
And it's my time!
It's my moment!
Ko Kapa o Pango e ngunguru nei!
This defines us as the All Blacks
Au, au, aue ha!
It's my time!
It's my moment!
I ahaha! Ka tu te ihiihi
Our dominance
Ka tu te wanawana
Our supremacy will triumph
Ki runga ki te rangi e tu iho nei, tu iho nei, hi!
And will be placed on high
Ponga ra!
Silver fern!
Kapa o Pango, aue hi!
All Blacks!
Ponga ra!
Silver fern!
Kapa o Pango, aue hi, ha!
All Blacks!

15 days to go - The pressure comes on Richie

With 15 days to go to the Rugby World Cup, a lot of attention is being focussed on this man: Richie McCaw the captain of the New Zealand All Blacks. Will Richie be holding the World Cup aloft on 20 October in Paris ?

Richard McCaw, or ‘Richie’ as he is widely known, is a key figure for the All Blacks and is generally recognised as the world’s best openside flanker. McCaw has the size and strength to be a punishing defender, the cool head and quick hands required to master the breakdown area, and the speed and handling skills to play a traditional tearaway’s linking role to superb effect. McCaw was named as All Blacks captain for the first time for the Test against Wales in 2004 aged just 23. He led the side in 12 Tests in 2006.He was sidelined for the middle part of 2004 with a head injury, but came back mid-way through the Air New Zealand NPC to captain the Canterbury side to a stunning final victory over Wellington. He earned the Air New Zealand NPC Division One Player of the Year for his effort.A tireless worker who reads the game well, McCaw was voted as Newcomer of the Year by the International Rugby Players Association in 2002. He was brought up in North Otago and educated at Otago Boys High, where he played his rugby at No 8. Had an outstanding 2003 Rugby World Cup and won the New Zealand player of the year award at the 2006 and 2003 Steinlager Rugby Awards. He was awarded the IRB Player of the Year award in 2006 after being a finalist in both the International Rugby Players Association and IRB awards in 2003 and again for the IRB in 2005.McCaw led Canterbury to the NPC title in 2004 and then took the Crusaders to back-to-back Super 14 titles in 2005 and 2006 before assuming command of the national team.