31/05/2007
Speaking from the comfort of the winner's corner Graham Henry has every right to hit out at the weak touring sides the northern hemisphere have sent south.France, Wales, England and Ireland are all guilty of fielding second and third-string sides in their current internationals against New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina respectively.
Henry says the future of test rugby is shaky if the International Rugby Board and the game's stakeholders can't sort out a better calendar to suit everyone's needs.
He's right on that one but I'm not quite so sure about his claims that New Zealand is lily-white in this shady business.
The rotation policy and the reconditioning programme are two controversial Henry inventions that must surely place an air of contradiction over his attacks on the men from the north.
Henry hasn't been guilty of leaving many, if any, stars at home on his European tours over the past three years.
But he has been guilty of loading the plane with two teams on the Grand Slam tour and playing separate teams each week. Which team was his best team was a moot point.
They both won to complete that Grand Slam and Henry hasn't lost a test up north for the past three years. So try and sort out the All Blacks A and B sides from that.
But the rotation policy continued at home last year with many of the best players rested against Ireland. Did the Irish spit the dummy? No.
Still, double teams seem to represent double standards.
It's an All Blacks tactic that has drawn criticism from some of the former greats in New Zealand, the guys that used to fight tooth and nail to hold on to their jerseys and aren't comfortable with them being handed out in increasing numbers these days.
But, as the saying goes, winners are grinners. Henry is certainly a winner and he's also smiling at the depth of his current stocks that this rotation policy has unearthed.
Of course there weren't any New Zealand winners from this year's Super 14. And there weren't many grinners in the Kiwi camps either.
OK, it's not test rugby but it's the next best thing. And in the apparent interests of test rugby Henry ruined the New Zealand Super 14 effort by taking out 22 stars and making them work on a World Cup fitness programme.
The logic seems to be that you ruin one competition to fix another.
We are yet to see the real benefits of that and only a World Cup victory will satisfy the critics. We all hope that eventuates because it was quite a sacrifice.
Almost the same sort of sacrifice the French have made now. Except they have done it the other way around. In a World Cup year, they are content to let their stars play for their clubs over the next two weekends rather than come to New Zealand and give away too many secrets against the All Blacks.
Commone sense or confused logic? Either way there's a lot of double-talk in an argument that is occupying increasing importance and has only heightened as the World Cup has dominated the international rugby landscape.
The last All Blacks coach John Mitchell was guilty of leaving stars at home from a northern tour in the leadup to the last World Cup. He did that in the interests of "development" and a few months later his side was bundled out in the semifinals of the cup.
The current coach has taken a different approach to try to solve an old problem.
Henry is right - something has to be done about the declining standards of test rugby and the IRB does need to urgently take control. But he's wrong to suggest New Zealand is totally innocent.
*Disclaimer - Views expressed within this story are not necessarily the views of this Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment