‘Whole thing is a shemozzle’
In his playing days Mark Graham would arrive at a game, watch an ambulance park up and accept there was a good chance that would be his mode of transport when he left the park.
Now the ex-Kiwis captain, who lives in Gladstone, Queensland, has been left wondering what sort of casualties will follow in the wake of the Kiwis’ capitulation out of the World Cup.
Like most New Zealanders, Graham, who was named NZ rugby league’s player of the century in 2007 , was shocked to witness the Kiwis’ 4-2 quarterfinal loss to Fiji in Wellington last weekend.
Few men gave their guts for their country than the menacing back rower known as ‘‘Sharko’’.
‘‘I have played games of footy where they would have the ambulance waiting for me when I finished the game,’’ Graham said. ‘‘That is how much it meant to me. I couldn’t do a victory lap, I had to go to hospital to get patched up.
‘‘And I knew that was going to happen before I played the game. It’s an insult (the Kiwis’ World Cup campaign). The whole thing is a shemozzle as far as I am concerned. An absolute shemozzle.’’
For someone who suffered so much pain and shed plenty of blood for the Kiwis, Graham is entitled more than anyone to express his disappointment.
Don’t just go pointing the finger solely at coach David Kidwell, he says. Because those who appointed him should also be accountable.
Graham doesn’t doubt Kidwell’s sincerity or passion for the Kiwis. As a union delegate where he works at the Ports of Gladstone, Graham has plenty of empathy for those who want to keep their jobs.
But he is also realistic. He believes heads should roll right at the top of the NZRL organisation, starting with CEO Alex Hayton. Grahams says it is time to ‘‘clean the joint up’’.
‘‘Something has got to change,’’ he fumed. ‘‘If someone is going to get rid of the coach, then can we also sack the people that hired him?
‘‘Because they are as much to blame. All David did was put his hand up, as anyone would. I am sure he has tried hard and has wanted to do the job well, but things haven’t panned out.
‘‘The board might know how to run a footy club, and to make money. But they don’t know anything about coaching. I ask they get rid of them too.’’
In pool play the Kiwis also lost to Tonga, a team Graham rated as a fine side. He also enjoyed the camaraderie displayed by the teams when they joined in prayer at the end of games.
Yet he says it is important for NZRL to self-examine why this all went so wrong. It has been a nightmare season, starting with the expulsion of Jesse Bromwich and Kevin Proctor for buying cocaine at 5am in the wake of the 30-12 loss to the Kangaroos in Canberra in May.
Graham is against the use of drugs, but believed the punishment meted out to the duo was excessive. He was also bewildered by the defection of Jason Taumalolo to Tonga shortly before the Kiwis squad for the tournament was named, and said an investigation was required to ensure that sort of thing never happened again.
‘‘To say one of the superstars of the game had decided he was not going to play for you … You would have to say ‘that is pretty poor, how come we didn’t know about that three weeks ago?’
‘‘I wouldn’t be happy about that. Wouldn’t you be talking to the boys all the time?’’
There will be no shortage of meat on the bone for NZRL to chew on when they go through their review process. They could do worse than think about blokes such as Graham when ruminating on what it should mean for players to wear the Kiwis jersey.
‘‘Sure Tonga and Fiji are not bad sides but they are not of the class of what the Kiwi side is,’’ Graham said.
‘‘It is hard to make good players into bad players but we seem to have managed that.
‘‘To say I am disappointed would be an understatement.’’
❚ Cultish Kiwis B6
‘‘If someone is going to get rid of the coach, then can we also sack the people that hired him?’’
Mark Graham, above