Why Coles deserves place at top table

ON the subject of retirements, the All Blacks hooker Dane Coles says he will call it quits after this autumn’s gathering in France, by which time he will be sending out the invites to his 37th birthday party. Which only goes to confirm what we have long suspected: if you want to stay fit, get injured. Coles spent long periods out of front-line rugby after winning a world title at his first attempt in 2015. That was a stellar New Zealand side – in all likelihood the finest combination ever to secure the Webb Ellis Trophy – and it was easy to miss the Maori’s contribution amid the majestic swirl of Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Ma’a Nonu, Brodie Retaliick and an impossibly potent phalanx of Smiths. But heck, he was a proper player back then.

He quickly moved from fighting battles, verbal as much as physical, with rival front rowers of the loquacious persuasion to fighting them with his own body. Concussion kicked in with alarming frequency; his knee went “pop” and took an entire season to “unpop” itself. But for those fallow periods, he might have embraced retirement already.

As it turns out, he finds himself in the right shape for a last hurrah. Good on him. Should he bag himself another winner’s medal, he will be only the second hooker to achieve the feat. The first? His countryman Keven Mealamu, the fellow North Islander he beat to the starting spot in 2015.

Where does he stand in the silver-ferned pantheon? Not as high as Sean Fitzpatrick, for sure, but he might come to be mentioned in the same breath as the Bruce McLeods and Tane Nortons and Andy Daltons. And that would be no mean accomplishment.