McCaw a victim or case of gamesman

EXCUSE me if I don't buy a ticket for a patriotic ride to the McCaw mecca.

No one will deny Australian flanker Scott Higginbotham tried to intimidate All Black skipper Richie McCaw in the rugby test match at Brisbane last Saturday night.

Guilty as charged, Higginbotham.

Two weeks? Was the punishment fair?

Perhaps not but then when has consistency ever been a forte of any judiciary in sport, let alone the IRB?

To put it in McCaw's words, the kneeing and the head-butting incidents were "annoying" and "frustrating".

It was straight from the horse's mouth so it's time to get over it, lads.

If anything, I think McCaw must find it somewhat embarrassing the media and All Blacks fans are still brewing a storm from spent leaves in a teapot.

McCaw, who will rise to be Sir Richie someday, is a master of gamesmanship.

No sir, a saint he certainly isn't.

He has got away with so much for so long, even at National Provincial Championship level.

Persistent infringing around the rucks and mauls is his speciality.

Seconds before Higginbotham lost the plot, McCaw was blatantly disrupting the flow of play and had roped the Wallaby flanker before a teammate bowled him over.

I don't see anything wrong with Higginbotham questioning McCaw's pedigree or roughing him up.

It wasn't like the Richard Loe thuggery of yesteryear when he broke the nose of Paul Carroza following a try in a test at Ballymore Oval in 1992.

Unchecked, the former All Black prop went on in the same year to gouge the eye of Greg Cooper in an NPC match at Rugby Park, Hamilton, earning him the nickname "Pokai".

Carroza in 2006 told the Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane: "I was annoyed he took such a cheap shot but the only thing that really got me mad was the excuse-making from the New Zealand camp."

If premeditation comes into play, Higginbotham's retaliation is at the different end of the ball park from Alan Whetton doing a rain dance on the face of a Samoan forward in a one-off test in Auckland, before the Loe incidents, amid pre-match media hype about how violent Pacific Islanders can be.

If my memory serves me well, during last year's Rugby World Cup here, a sizeable number of fans felt Samoa international Paul Williams was right in taking the law into his hands when he punched a South African becoming a nuisance.

"It's not tiddlywinks, you know," was the standard response.

In many ways it was no different to Magpies prop Clint Newland exposing ex-All Black prop Neemia Tialata's career-ending glass jaw during a lineout when linesman Gary Wise was supposedly looking at his wristwatch.

Last Saturday, it seems Australia coach Robbie Deans asked his men to show some mongrel and they obliged.

The 18-18 result showed whatever the ploy of the hosts, it was pretty effective.

The Steve Hansen-coached men in black didn't respond well and, consequently, under-achieved.

Goodness knows what happens in a ruck and maul or the scrum.

Adept at blowing a whistle, South African Craig Joubert may well have been standing right in front of the ruck when Higginbotham carried out his indiscretions.

Should a good referee be focusing on a handbag incident or the furious activity surrounding the ball carrier from an ensuing passage of play?

Peripheral vision is a godsend but it is spurious for the lynch mob to bay for the ref's blood every time the ABs under-achieve.

No doubt McCaw would prefer to sort things out in the 80 minutes on the park, not wallow in the sympathy of the media wallahs or parochial fans.

Taking the law into your own hands isn't right but quite acceptable in the ambit of gamesmanship.

Is Higginbotham a cheat?

Only if every time Joubert penalised the ABs for infringing, not to mention marched McCaw back for back-chat.

It's laughable that McCaw ever needed protection against Wallaby back Quade Cooper.

In fact when Cooper needled McCaw not long ago in a test match, the Cantabrian retaliated by elbowing the Kiwi-born Wallaby in the face.

South African Dean Grayling got stuck into McCaw in Dunedin and copped a two-week suspension, too.

Did it ever occur to anyone why no one else in the All Blacks team is a target?

Is it probably because the world has caught up with McCaw's indiscretions and it's time to ruffle his feathers if officials aren't pinging him.

One could argue if McCaw is good enough to get away with things then he should be good enough to get out of the kitchen too, when it starts getting too hot.

Maybe in the next test the referee and his assistants should mollycoddle McCaw rather than police the game.

While the Brisbane test was try-less dead rubber, it was great to see a team show some mongrel.

How much wiser will Hansen and co be from that stalemate? For instance, did Dan Carter again show big-match nerves when kicking penalties?

How good was the timing in taking Keven Mealamu to inject Andrew Hore as hooker?

Had the ABs won last Saturday we would have let sleeping dogs lie.

Ironically the Higginbotham-type mongrel is exactly what coaching stables prescribe to teams heading to the World Cup.

If Higginbotham was the hatchet man then Dingo Deans will take stock for the next time.