Gordon McLauchlan: Rugby could do with a charm school

COMMENT

An incident I talk about to young writers happened some years ago in Auckland at a private party to welcome an eminent outdoors journalist who wrote for, among others, Marlin magazine.

He was being asked about the biggest fish, the location of the most fish, which ones fought the hardest - and so on, when suddenly he put his hand up and said: "Hang on guys, I don't write about fish, I write about people who catch fish."

I had never heard the first principle of sports writing better put: cherchez la femme or le bloke. Good stories are about people and what makes them tick, and provide insights.

So for months I've been waiting for some smart, revealing profiles of the men who are fronting the All Blacks, one of the great national assets, albeit one fast depreciating.

I'm still waiting. Are they as cloddish as they look? In the absence of word pictures by writers who know them, I can use only what I see - John Mitchell with all his ebullient charm, his flashing smile and rollicking wit handling the media. (That's irony, "Cowboy".)

Does this bloke, who makes Don Brash look wired up on filaments of caffeine, strike you as the sort of richly imaginative thinker who would inspire young athletes to feats of discipline, intelligence and daring? I watch him closely. At press conferences, he drops his head and looks up through his eyebrows like a rifleman taking a bead on the enemy.

And then there's Robbie Deans, who does smile from time to time but so bleakly you'd think he'd just got out of bed and gone barefoot and ungloved into a Christchurch smog-frost.

Behind them stands "Cowboy" Shaw, a man of such redoubtable intellect he refuses to talk footie to ordinary people.

Why are they all like this, including Reuben Who? Do they take classes in sangfroid, or does boorishness just come naturally to them?

I'm talking personality here, relaxed human contact. I thought we'd got over the old aw-shucks taciturnity but these people are passionless prats.

Mitchell seems seriously adrenalin-deficient to me, as joyless a man as I've seen in years. If he's not, why does he pretend to be?

Think of having a couple of beers with Mitchell, Deans and Who and then think of the company of any of the French team or their handlers.

Or Clive Woodward and Eddie Jones. At least they look intelligent. Or, best of all, George Gregan. Now there's an alert mind behind a quick smile or a sharp tongue, depending on what's required.

Rugby is a great game but it is now predominantly, like it or not, big business. Let's not be confused sentimentalists. You can't win it without the best people playing for you and the best people organising them. They get paid big money so they deliver or else.

Mitchell's not the NZRU's CEO but he's either chosen to be the front-of-house bloke for the All Blacks or has had it foisted upon him, and he demonstrably can't handle that role.

It was galling to hear an experienced journalist in Sydney say the All Blacks were the worst team he'd had to deal with in 20 years.

Now let's look at Mitchell's selection policy. He has used and discarded a huge number of players in the past 15 months. And he's still vacillating, having taken a full season to decide that Ma'a Nonu and Rodney So'oialo are too green. Then he takes the completely untried Ben Atiga over for a mystery tour.

Of the top four World Cup contenders only we lacked a top-class goal-kicker, thus starting with a handicap.

The boast is that we have a bright, young team, the youngest of the big nations at the tournament. So what? Is Mitchell getting ready for the next World Cup while the older teams have homed in on this one?

An old axiom I used to have in front of my desk when I was a sportswriter was: "You can play only as well as you are allowed." The All Blacks were shut out of the game last weekend not only because the Wallabies played with great fire and determination but because they also played with focused accuracy.

Their lineouts were immaculate and their ball retention and tackling almost unerring.

Drongoes were stridently calling Richie McCaw "the best open-side flanker in the world" . In fact, he's one of the best. The Wallabies have two of the best in Phil Waugh and George Smith.

Eddie Jones may have changed the future of the game for everybody by using two No 7 types to support the ball-carriers with speed and anticipation, and to move swiftly and remorselessly to the tackle.

And honestly, decent bloke though he may be, Reuben Who just hasn't got that kind of pizzazz.

The All Blacks didn't just have a bad day. They were out-thought and out-muscled and played only as well as they were allowed. They have some brilliant players but even in the playoff against France the lack of accuracy was obvious.

If Mitchell is given another shot it should be for one more season only to see if he can really make firm decisions on the merits of players and put the undeniable brilliance of some of them on a base of competence.

Also, the NZRFU should send him to charm school, or find someone bright and articulate to do the fronting, someone warm and with a wry Kiwi sense of humour, someone who understands rugby is a spillover from life.

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