Tēnā koe. I'm visiting NZ from my home in Sydney for the first time in several years this week and am writing to you from my hotel room in Christchurch. Over breakfast this morning and at the bar last night, I strained my ears to over-hear conversations about 'Bring On Razor', but all the talk was of the Commonwealth Games or, of all sports, golf - which I'm told is experiencing a renaissance here. No sign of roaming lynch squads, which could be a healthy sign for NZ rugby or, alternatively, that the public has given up.

I did note, however, that the front cover of the NZ Herald this morning is plastered with a full-page editorial calling for Foster to be flushed, although in more restrained terms than that: "A decent man who is out of his depth in a brutal business," was the chosen phrase for the death sentence from the anonymous editorial bench. It was just not five defeats out of six matches, the Herald opines, but the manner of the defeats. "Foster's men are too often cluttered and confused in the execution of their roles." This seems to be a nice way of saying they are playing like headless chooks. Which raises the question of why it took them three years to work that out.

On the plane on the way across the Tasman, I caught up with the Argentina-Wallabies game and had a premonition of the Bledisloe Cup travelling in the other direction this year. The Wallabies played with real rhythm and intent, as did Los Pumas. There is certainly room for argument whether the likes of Hunter Paisami and Jordan Petaia are better players than their All Black opposites, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are better coached. And that is, and has always been, the problem.

It's really not rocket science. New Zealand Rugby made a catastrophic error in appointing Foster. He may be a nice chap, but he is not an innovator and does not have the imagination to take the game forward. As countless others have pointed out, he's like a hack chef who inherited a five-star restaurant and never changed the menu. NZR need to get the cheque book out now and pay Foster out. It seems they almost certainly will at this point.. But that it was allowed to get this far is an indictment on the entire administration.

OK, I had better go and do some real work.

Politics and Pragmatism

In retaining Foster and elevating Schmidt to a more strategic role, the NZR has made both a political arse-saving decision and a sensibly pragmatic one. Fundamentally, of course, this was always about fixing up a public relations mess of their own making.

And what a mess. Given the public uproar over the All Blacks’ performances, It seemed almost certain a week ago that Foster was gone for all money. And I have little doubt that Robinson was on hand in South Africa to accept his ‘resignation’ after the Ellis Park test.

But the ABs’ beating the Boks against all the odds in game II mucked up the plan, leaving Robinson to convene that bizarre media conference in Johannesburg at which he said nothing of substance, while conveying what most of us have known all along - that the real villains in this saga are the NZR board themselves - an indecisive, directionless and poorly organised rabble whose original appointment of Foster in the face of better alternatives was both a poor choice and one they have been scrambling to make up for every since.

Like the AB performances themselves, at least up to Ellis Park, the NZR administration has been a shuffling, stumbling, conviction-less shambles. The right hand does not not appear to know what the left hand is doing, there is no boardroom game plan and no-one appears to be effectively in charge. So they have spared themselves further embarrassment with this 14-month workaround.

That’s the politics. What about the pragmatism? Well, that’s the good part. There appear still to be enough adults in this over-crowded kitchen to stop the next 14 months being a complete disaster. Foster remains the titular head of the galley, though much of his original coaching hands have been turfed out of the kitchen and replaced with smarter rugby brains - Ryan and Schmidt - who should be able to bring together the available ingredients to as to serve up a more palatable outcome.

You would hope that now a firm decision has been made - well, at least the appearance of one - this will end the self-generated soap opera and get people focused back on the task at hand. That starts with the Pumas in Christchurch next week and then onto the Wallabies and the retention of the Bledisloe Cup.

As for Razor Robertson, he may feel a sense of relief, not having to be drafted in at the worst possible moment to fix a mess created by somebody else. This gives him clear air to take over the top job next year, should be still be interested. And it gives the players, who were clearly and rightfully sick of the whole charade, a sense of certainty and direction.

If the outcome is Foster being more consultative, more open to new ideas and less dogged in his selections and game plans, the changes will be an improvement. They certainly couldn’t make things any worse. Could they?

The issues are lack of composure, fading concentration and poor structure on defence. Mentally, they are still not there. We continue to see lousy choices on attack, poor positioning on defence and lapses of discipline at key moments. Again, we see their capacity to momentarily look comfortable and in control and then drop their focus like a ADHD teen skipping his ritalin. And all this against a Wallaby team thrown together at the last minute. Something is wrong.

Groundhog Day

Everyone has a theory on the continuing mystifying propensity for the All Blacks, formerly the world’s greatest team, to not only repeatedly shoot themselves in both feet, but then to remove their socks and blow their toes off one by one.

The test in Christchurch was there for the taking in the first half. But poor discipline, together with an incapacity to adjust to the referee’s idiosyncratic style, brought them undone. This was compounded by the head-scratching decision by the coaching box just minutes into the second half to replace the entire front row, including the ABs’ most in-form player. From there, it was just a comedy of schoolboy errors, including the aimless pie-chucking of Codie Taylor into potentially match-winning line outs.

All the Argentinians had to do was to give their opponents the ball and watch them implode. Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t we seen this movie before? Ian Foster and Sam Cane are like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, reliving the same nightmare over and over. In this case, however, the adenoidal tones of Sonny Bono on the alarm clock radio were supplied by Michael Cheika.

Murray’s character in that movie was a cynical and self-obsessed TV weatherman feeling trapped in a job and a routine that he doesn’t particularly like. So he is forced to live the same day over and over until he finds his purpose. Ultimately, after much trial and error, he realises he has choices and he has agency. He can’t keep blaming his predicament on everybody else.

In the case of the All Blacks, there are any number of external forces they can point to for their Groundhog funk. There is the coaching soap opera, of course, but also the selection controversies (wings at centres, open-sides at number eight, fullbacks at wings etc;). There is the ageing of faithful old warriors and the apparent lack of equally competent young replacements. There is the argument that Super Rugby, particularly without South Africa, is failing to prepare them for tests. There is the raiding of NZ coaching and playing IP by cashed-up NH clubs and an associated thinning of development programs at home. There is mounting concern among parents about stories of premature senility in repeatedly concussed players. Add to that stale game plans, refereeing controversies and inconsistencies and the vagaries of the rule book.

The point is there is always something externally you can blame for the state this team is in, but none on its own explains it. If you held a gun to my head and told me to boil it down to one thing, it would be a failure of leadership across the board. No-one is taking responsibility - from the NZR to the coaching set-up to the players themselves. The feeling is one of drift. Like the Mary Celeste, the All Black machine is a pilot-less ship lost at sea. And the failure of leadership is creating a crisis of confidence, of second-guessing that led to the debacle on Saturday night.

In short, no-one is in charge. And it shows.

So according to Rennie, Rieko Ioane gave some lip to Folau Faingaa about the Wallabies disrespecting the haka with the arrow formation. From what I can understand (and it seems hearsay upon hearsay), this comment was made on-field after the ABs scored the winning try.

Seriously? Here’s what’s going on here. It’s finals weekend in Australia for the actually popular codes. The Swans play the Cats and the Rabbitohs play the Panthers. The ARU needs eyeballs on their code and, by implication, their advertisers. So one of the spin doctors sends Rennie out to fan a confected controversy over a throwaway comment by one player to another in the heat of a game.

This happens constantly in Australia with rugby union. The hacks, desperate for column inches, are complicit with these five-minute manufactured controversies and lame attempts to fan outrage. And of course the rest of the media, including NZ’s own tumbleweed newsrooms, buy it.

It really is pathetic.

Real Rugby wins against a robotic steroid-enhanced rolling maul machine.

These All Blacks appear to lack the top two inches. Make that six inches. Not really Mensa material are they? They’re like Wiley C. Coyote dreaming up endless ways of blowing up the Roadrunner only to tie the kit dynamite stick to their own tails

Redirect Notice

Breaking the Code

Something is irrevocably broken in a professional spectator sport when one of your first inquiries ahead of a big game is to check who is on the refereeing panel.

Rugby at the highest levels has become a lottery. Red and yellow cards, often inconsistently applied, are deciding the outcome of matches far too often. Video referees are calling play back multiple phases to check for suspected ‘foul play’. Games are thus stopped for tedious on-field inquisitions that destroy the momentum and leave attention-wandering watchers at home listlessly flicking back to their phones.

Attacking play too often now is disadvantaged by offside rush defences. Playmakers are loathe to chance their arms for fear of being isolated. The game is reduced to aerial ping pong, endless box kicks and rolling mauls, which appear indefensible and which, for most of the public, are like watching cement dry. Players deliberately waste time and seek to milk penalties. The aim is no longer so much to play rugby, but to play the officials.

This is not an uncommon view. Many people would now agree that the flow and beauty of the game of rugby union has been destroyed by whatever-it-takes professionalism and cynical time-wasting tactics, alongside the paranoia from the World Rugby authorities about class actions over the long-term damage created by frequent concussions.

I’ve always been a rugby union tragic, ever eager to defend the code to my Australian friends and colleagues who extol the superior entertainment value of NRL or AFL, but I am now increasingly inclined to agree with them. So many times I have sat down in recent years with excited anticipation to watch an international test, only to end up feeling cheated and disappointed in the product. And this is irrespective of who is playing.

In saying this, I am well aware of the completely understandable and justified need to preserve player welfare. No-one wants to see still young men struggling with premature dementia because of head knocks suffered on the rugby field. But I question whether the current highly legalistic approach to this issue, where every game is turned into an on-field coronial inquest, is the answer.

The onus is on the law-makers to fix this. The rules need to be tweaked so as to return the code to the way it was once played, where there was a reward for flair and risk-taking, where joyful athleticism trumped cynical gamesmanship, where officials were more focused on the spirit of the law than on its letter, and where the opinion of the paying public was given precedence.

Of course, you may well say that this criticism just boils down to a vain wish for a return to the virtues of the amateur over the professional code - in other words, a futile desire to turn the clock back. On the other hand, if money and markets now rule the game (as they are doing in every inch of our lives), the cash registers will soon go silent anyway if this dour, ugly and pointless spectacle is allowed to continue.

Meanwhile, in women’s rugby we see a glimpse of what used to be….

Is Justin Marshall paid to be a contrarian? He is an utter piston wristed gibbon.

In the most contentious and controversial refereeing decision of the year, we have to rely on the aggrieved coach’s second-hand version of what World Rugby has said about Australia’s complaint. If that doesn’t tell you how corrupt and opaque the governance structures (or lack of them) are in rugby union, nothing will. Where is the official WR statement? Is anyone in charge here? Or are they all too busy covering their arses and protecting their expense accounts to comment? Of course Rennie is going to say that. He’s like the kid who comes home from school and tells his parents the teacher has given him the week off from doing homework.

Might have been more comfortable for the Black Ferns had they made their conversions. How many points did they leave out there?

Real Rugby wins against a robotic steroid-enhanced rolling maul machine.

They had Dan Carter coaching them on kicking against a team that plays for the corners and runs rolling mauls. Where’s the bloody kicking game?

These stupid bloody rolling mauls are killing rugby. How do you stop that?

England going off their feet at every ruck and we get pinged??

Breaking the Code

Something is irrevocably broken in a professional spectator sport when one of your first inquiries ahead of a big game is to check who is on the refereeing panel.

Rugby at the highest levels has become a lottery. Red and yellow cards, often inconsistently applied, are deciding the outcome of matches far too often. Video referees are calling play back multiple phases to check for suspected ‘foul play’. Games are thus stopped for tedious on-field inquisitions that destroy the momentum and leave attention-wandering watchers at home listlessly flicking back to their phones.

Attacking play too often now is disadvantaged by offside rush defences. Playmakers are loathe to chance their arms for fear of being isolated. The game is reduced to aerial ping pong, endless box kicks and rolling mauls, which appear indefensible and which, for most of the public, are like watching cement dry. Players deliberately waste time and seek to milk penalties. The aim is no longer so much to play rugby, but to play the officials.

This is not an uncommon view. Many people would now agree that the flow and beauty of the game of rugby union has been destroyed by whatever-it-takes professionalism and cynical time-wasting tactics, alongside the paranoia from the World Rugby authorities about class actions over the long-term damage created by frequent concussions.

I’ve always been a rugby union tragic, ever eager to defend the code to my Australian friends and colleagues who extol the superior entertainment value of NRL or AFL, but I am now increasingly inclined to agree with them. So many times I have sat down in recent years with excited anticipation to watch an international test, only to end up feeling cheated and disappointed in the product. And this is irrespective of who is playing.

In saying this, I am well aware of the completely understandable and justified need to preserve player welfare. No-one wants to see still young men struggling with premature dementia because of head knocks suffered on the rugby field. But I question whether the current highly legalistic approach to this issue, where every game is turned into an on-field coronial inquest, is the answer.

The onus is on the law-makers to fix this. The rules need to be tweaked so as to return the code to the way it was once played, where there was a reward for flair and risk-taking, where joyful athleticism trumped cynical gamesmanship, where officials were more focused on the spirit of the law than on its letter, and where the opinion of the paying public was given precedence.

Of course, you may well say that this criticism just boils down to a vain wish for a return to the virtues of the amateur over the professional code - in other words, a futile desire to turn the clock back. On the other hand, if money and markets now rule the game (as they are doing in every inch of our lives), the cash registers will soon go silent anyway if this dour, ugly and pointless spectacle is allowed to continue.

Meanwhile, in women’s rugby we see a glimpse of what used to be….

Just watched the Black Ferns vs Wales. Infinitely more entertaining with far greater skills on display.

@KiwiMurph Perhaps they’re “keeping their powder dry”

Does Marshall practise being an utter piston wristed gibbon?

Wales will be excited.