By JOSEPH ROMANOS - Taranaki Daily News | Monday, 03 March 2008
Bouyed by a couple of early successes with Wales, rugby coach Warren Gatland has come out swinging, hammering not just New Zealand rugby, but also New Zealanders.
Gatland was disappointed not to be a strong candidate when the All Blacks coaching job was being assessed late last year.
After solid work with Ireland, Wasps and Waikato, the former hooker should have been strongly considered, and when it was obvious the waters were running against him, he headed to Wales.
Good on him. It's a professional game, and if he can sell his skills to people who value them, he should.
But his astonishing weekend attack on New Zealand had all the signs of sour grapes.
Perhaps he feels empowered because under him Wales has had early success in the Six Nations, but let's not forget that Graham Henry was hailed as the Great Redeemer soon after he arrived to coach Wales, and ended up being tipped out of the job after a string of losses.
Chips firmly embedded in each shoulder, Big Warren accuses the All Blacks of not respecting their opponents, agrees that New Zealand is nothing but "two poxy islands in the Pacific", says Kiwis have an over- inflated opinion of themselves and says we need to be more open-minded about the rest of the world.
"Do we change anything? Do we change the politics of other countries?" Gatland asks, stressing how unimportant New Zealand is.
I disagree with Gatland on nearly every score and I hope that in 20 years he'll be embarrassed by what he has said.
From my observations, the All Blacks team is not especially arrogant. The players realise they are among the best in the world, which they are, but they don't seem to take opponents too lightly.
It doesn't mean they always win, but they win pretty often, and they generally seem fitter and better-trained than their opposition.
Two poxy islands? Hey, Warren, drive for 10 hours through many parts of Asia, Africa or Canada, and you might realise what a beautiful country we have.
Need to be more open-minded about the rest of the world? New Zealanders are generally extremely aware of other parts of the world, as witnessed by the strong following here of the American presidential primaries.
Put it this way: I'll wager we follow stories in the United States, Britain and Asia more closely than they follow ours! We never change politics in other countries? Well, in that case big Wazza has clearly not heard of Kate Sheppard, Ernest Rutherford, Alan McDiarmid, Brian Barratt-Boyes, William Pickering, Maurice Wilkins, Harold Gillies, Fred Hollows, Archie McIndoe, Matt During, Marie Clay, Colin Murdoch or John Bedbrook.
Gatland clearly doesn't know his history, or his science, or his medicine, or his politics.
But before he opened his mouth, you'd think he'd at least have considered our anti-nuclear legislation, which certainly reverberated around the world, to the extent that the United States sought for two decades to bully us into changing our stance.
Advice for Warren: keep your head down, stick to rugby and stop making a fool of yourself.
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