Bleating about your own leaked info looks weak
Front office ineffectual as Blues franchise’s strange story continues – but at least the team is winning.
THE TABAI Matson affair, a weird sideshow to the already strange story of the Blues and their coaching decisions, highlighted the glaring element missing when Sir John Kirwan has been under the media spotlight this week.
When Matson, one of the sunniest, most open men in New Zealand rugby, had to dodge a few awkward questions (Had he actually gone to Auckland for a meeting?), his task was made much easier by the fact Crusaders chief executive Hamish Riach was standing beside him offering support, praise and a united front.
We can take it as read Matson flew to Auckland. If not his answer in Christchurch would have been, ‘‘No, I didn’t’’, not ‘‘I won’t delve into the detail’’.
But angst over that decision was diverted entirely by Riach and Matson confirming jointly that Matson will be seeing out his contract in Christchurch next year.
Kirwan is no media rookie. As a 20-year-old he started five years as a weekly contributor to the Radio Hauraki breakfast show. In 1989, in the midst of his glittering All Black career, he and his good friend Ric Salizzo produced the first of three excellent videos on touring life with the All Blacks. He was involved in the first of his books back in 1987.
But if ever there was a time when having an approving Blues official either nodding at his shoulder, or adding gravitas by looking stern and concerned, would have come in handy, it was surely during the week.
In the battle for fans’ hearts and minds what happens on the field comes first.
The Blues’ players, hapless victims in the coaching controversies, are doing everything they can, with a hard-fought, deserved win over the Bulls.
But off the paddock, perception is everything. Bleating about the media when your own organisation has leaked information just looks weak. And the Blues front office seems ineffectual.
Where do the All Blacks selectors turn for their third halfback at the World Cup?
They struck pure halfback gold with Aaron Smith, not even in the 2011 cup-winning squad, but indispensable by the end of 2012, and now possibly the most important back in the All Blacks.
TJ Perenara looks a shoo in for one backup spot, but for the likely third halfback, do they turn to the tried and tested, in Andy Ellis, or, possibly, to the electric and new, in Brad Weber?
We should be grateful the All Blacks are in the wily, experienced hands of Steve Hansen, Ian Foster and Grant Fox, and not chosen by excitable media commentators, bloggers and talkback callers.
Hansen, as he often does, cuts straight to the chase. When you’re selecting an international rugby side, the All Black coach reckons, ‘‘you can’t keep all the old guys, but you can’t get rid of all the old guys’’. Walking that knife edge between experience and youth is the key to everything at test level.
The selectors have shown how the best time to infuse new blood is not on the cusp of a new tournament, but from the position of huge strength that comes from World Cup victory.
But might they make an exception for Weber?
Whispered as the nearest thing in today’s super-scrutinised landscape to a possible bolter, it’s highly unlikely he’ll make the cup squad if he doesn’t have at least some game time in the Rugby Championship in July and August, or the one-off Bledisloe Cup test in Auckland on August 15.
If he does, and plays with the brilliance he’s shown in super rugby, the choices look stark and simple.
Tasked with putting a team on the field to win the World Cup, who would you rather see playing for the All Blacks if, God forbid, something happened to Aaron Smith?
Weber, a shooting star, Perenara, a very good player who hasn’t quite made the jump to test certainty, or Ellis, battle tested to the point he was the man who made the last play in the 2011 final?
We should be grateful the All Blacks are in the wily, experienced hands of Steve Hansen, Ian Foster and Grant Fox, and not chosen by excitable media commentators.