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There is a story, possibly apocryphal, about a journalist who got a dream assignment some years back - sent to Bangkok to do a sympathetic piece on the plight of bar girls in that town.
When he returned, he had a few mementoes to show his envious workmates, including a piece of paper. On it was written his first name. That was all.
One of his colleagues asked what it was. A bar girl had done it, came the reply. The colleague, unimpressed with this keepsake, offered the opinion that her handwriting wasn't very good.
"Oh, she didn't write it with her hand," came the reply. A couple of weeks later, the journalist was diagnosed with a rather embarrassing keepsake of a different kind.
I mention this only to illustrate the old saying: what goes around, comes around. Graham Henry getting annoyed at Wellington Air NZ Cup coach Jamie Joseph for not playing the All Blacks released for the purpose evoked another memory.
When Henry was coaching Auckland back in the day, the All Black coach at the time asked for some care to be taken with the players who would be moving into the All Black camp. Imagine his surprise when the Aucklanders turned up looking as if they'd been through a mincer, popped in a tumble dryer and then run over by a bus. No one told Graham Henry what to do when he was Auckland coach.
This is the same Graham Henry who installed rotation, rehabilitation and reconditioning, who removed players from half a Super 14 season and who made such a pig's ear out of the not unreasonable subject of player welfare that he will be forever associated with that atrocious World Cup result in 2007 and the unlovable term: Cotton Wool Club.
Joseph has a fair measure of support over his stance and that is partly because it is unclear who is in charge. Does, or should, Henry have control over Air NZ Cup coaches where the All Blacks are concerned; able to dictate who plays and in what position?
Or should the provincial coaches be autonomous and select whomsoever they see fit, All Black or not?
The NZRU needs a simple, clear directive - one way or the other. One minute we are told the All Blacks won't be in the Air New Zealand Cup; next minute they are, because some need more rugby. It's possible to feel sympathetic for Cory Jane, who got snotty with Wellington for not selecting him - he's being asked to be part of an international rugby team without actually playing rugby.
The situation needs sorting. Either the coach of the All Blacks controls matters or he has no say in it at all and he shouldn't be putting pressure on people like Joseph, no matter what channels he uses.
SOME PUZZLED old darlings have started taking up the cudgels re Robbie Deans. He's lost five out of eight, they trumpet. Surely to be fair; consistent; media should be punishing Deans with the same angry prose with which Henry is attacked.
Well, no, actually. Deans needs to be judged on the same basis Henry said he would be: the World Cup.
Only someone who'd drunk too much Red Bull and stilnox would equate the two coaches at present. Deans took over a team at a low ebb, by any measure. They weren't the favourites for the last World Cup. Deans has never been an international coach before; he has neither the player depth New Zealand has (even these days) nor the weight of expectation that drives the All Blacks. Even so, he has mended the Wallaby scrum - this supposed Achilles heel did better against the Boks than the All Blacks - even if the Wallabies committed almost as many errors and even if their lineout was, if possible, worse than the All Blacks.
Deans didn't get re-selected after leading his country to its worst-ever World Cup result. He's building a team for the next World Cup - just as someone called Mitchell did and just as Henry did. He deserves not to have judgement passed, as happened with those two, until then.
AT LEAST neither Henry nor Deans got caught up in anything like the 'Bloodgate' scandal which has rocked English rugby and which involved, peripherally, our own Nick Evans.
Harlequins winger Tom Williams concealed a capsule of blood in his sock during a Heineken Cup match. It was smeared over his face so he could claim a 'blood bin' and let Evans, their principal kicker, on to the field as a replacement so he could - in theory - kick the winning goal for Harlequins. Quins still lost 6-5.
The winger was caught on TV winking as he left the field. Williams has been banned for a year and coach Dean Richards has been censured and has resigned. Both are appealing.
Some may try to argue that the Bloodgate thing was gamesmanship - that, in theory, it is no different to someone feigning an injury while a team-mate puts on their boot. It is cheating, pure and simple, with aforethought, and the Brits have to be congratulated for swift action.
DID ANYONE else spot the marvellous snafu in the Sunday Star-Times last week? We in competition generally don't call attention to each other's mistakes (because we all make them ... ) but this was a doozy.
In a page three piece, former All Black lock Andy Haden was quoted copiously in a 'what to do to fix the All Blacks' story.
In their 'Love it, Hate it' column right next door, Haden featured again, in this little tribute in the 'Hate it' bit: "Andy 'Rent-a-quote' Haden. Put a lid on it, pal".
