KEY POINTS:
Roy Asotasi versus Gary Kemble was a bloody, incisive battle. The Kiwi captain wanted the coach out, and that's what he got.
The key to this historic moment in New Zealand league is that for all the admonishments aimed Asotasi's way, the game's administration caved in so quickly.
A pivotal factor, of course, was that the highly acclaimed coach Wayne Bennett was waiting in the wings. But it was player power that won the day and enabled an essential change to take place.
A famous American baseball manager, Casey Stengel, who led big clubs during the early 1900s, said the key to being a good manager was keeping the people who hated him away from those who were undecided. But as Kemble and the NZRL found out, the media is always at hand for unhappy players.
A quick rummage brought up similar cases, here and abroad. What stands out is that for all the temptation to regard insurgent players as self-interested brats, they can be right in principle even if their behaviour along the way is open to question.
Men such as Kemble, Jed Rowlands and Geoff Howarth were either out of their depth or unsuitable for their jobs. What deserved scrutiny, especially with Kemble and Rowlands, is how they got their jobs in the first place.
The rights and wrongs of other examples are more debatable, and in the saga involving David Nucifora and the Brumbies, the one-time glamour Australian rugby outfit signed its own death warrant as title winners by allowing all-powerful players to save their own necks.
As for whether player power is more prevalent in the modern day, it could simply be that it is more visible in an age of corporate-styled sports management and highly structured administration.
Powerful players have always held sway in certain situations. In the end, the form and impact rests heavily on the people involved.
You don't muck about with a bloke like Sir Alex Ferguson, as David Beckham found out.
Beckham-mania is almost as big as the Manchester United club itself, which is partly why the great manager decided the golden one should leave. Yet he tolerated Roy Keane's numerous outbursts against the quality of his own team, until Keane was no longer irreplaceable as the United captain.
The bottom line though is that if a club or country is facing a widespread revolt of determined players, then the coach usually has to go.
THE FALLEN COACHES
David Nucifora and the Brumbies
The phlegmatic Nucifora became a sacked-coach-in-waiting when dumped midway through the 2004 season while his team led the Super 12 by a country mile. He continued as coach for the rest of the tournament and won the title. The highly successful Brumbies were based around strong-minded players, and they conducted the silent coup which cut Nucifora down and installed puppet coach Laurie Fisher. Nucifora had been too autocratic, it was suggested. But Nucifora was planning for a future without the ageing stars. Man of this match was Joe Roff, the players' representative who sat on the board meeting which fired Nucifora. The Brumbies have failed to make the semifinals since, which suggests that Nucifora - now in charge of the Blues - was on the mark with his succession plan. Of course the players denied they had forced the coach out, but no one believed them. Put it this way: if George Gregan had given Nucifora a glowing reference, he'd probably still be there.
Jed Rowlands and the Blues
The likeable Taranaki import was in over his head and quickly lost it. He was an innocent abroad with a 1999 Blues team laced with hardened pros. Word leaked that the players were discussing a lot more than the room service in their South African hotel, and Rowlands was on the skids. A letter from the players to the New Zealand Rugby Union provided the final twist of the knife. Rowlands was sacked in a most unusual manner, being dumped as the Auckland coach before the NPC season had even begun. He was overlooked for the 2000 Super 12 and packed his bags for obscurity.
Laurie Mains and the Highlanders
Boy, what a stoush. Mains had one major supporter in captain Taine Randell. Other leaders, with Anton Oliver to the fore, were against him for reasons including his obsessive dietary demands. Mains reckoned there were 11 players involved and that coercion was involved but Oliver said there were 23 malcontents. HQ for the insurgents was the flat shared by Oliver and lock Simon Maling while Highlanders chief executive John Hornbrook also fanned the flames, extravagantly claiming that Mains created a climate of fear and that the players' letter of complaint was like a note out of World War II concentration camp Dachau. Ouch. With gunsmoke thick in the air, Mains demurely announced he would quit the Highlanders at the end of 2003.
Mike Ruddock and Wales
Rugby is featuring strongly and here's another one. There are wonderful details about the trifling matters at the heart of this dispute, mainly thanks to a book by the captain Gareth Thomas. They sum up perfectly the ills of Welsh rugby, once the coalminers' dream, now just stuck in a hole. Ruddock quit less than a season after his Welsh team won the Grand Slam, for which he was made an OBE. Essentially, the Welsh players found Ruddock to be a poor replacement for Steve Hansen. Among his alleged crimes was the creation of a lax atmosphere in which drink-bottles were dumped half-empty at training and changing sheds were left in a mess (Welsh players must need constant reminding to tidy their rooms). The players didn't demand Ruddock's sacking but intimated to Welsh boss Steve Lewis that he wasn't up to the job and had lost authority. Lewis backed the coach and told the players to sort it out with him. The breaking point was a players' strike threat over insurance concerns. Thomas got into such a heated television debate on a panel led by player-turned-journalist Eddie Butler that he was hospitalised with a headache. Ruddock meekly quit before a clash against Ireland citing good old "family reasons". He probably saw the writing on the wall, and had no intention of banging his head against it.
Matt Williams and Scotland
Rugby again. The Scottish squad ticked all the wrong boxes when quizzed during Williams' performance review in 2005. What's more, their dissent magically found its way to the media. A union faced with a 3-14 win-loss record under the coach had all it needed to chop the Aussie coach. A coach doesn't stand a chance when his own bosses flick the player-power switch.
Brian Clough and Leeds
A legendary soccer moment. Brian Clough was eventually brought down by the bottle, but he also had plenty of it in his prime. Yet the man who inspired Derby County to great deeds was no match for the Leeds dressing room in 1974 after clashing with their famous players including captain Billy Bremner. The players were probably already miffed by Clough's previous criticism of Leeds' brutal style under Don Revie, and their mood wouldn't have been helped by his opening speech when he told them to chuck their medals away because they were won by cheating. Player power led to the charismatic, acid-tongued Clough being sacked after a 44-day reign which had brought one win in seven games. Revie's Leeds were a mighty if controversial club in the late 1960s and early 1970s although they were also infamous bridesmaids. Clough, a media darling, couldn't match Revie's exploits but walked off with £100,000 ($256,200) and went on to a stunning career at Nottingham Forest. He tasted more glory and adulation with Forest, but finished up a shambolic and sad figure. It was much the same for Leeds - the Clough cameo was the beginning of the end for it as a super club.
Greg Chappell and India
Australian Chappell aimed a barrage at a few of India's revered batters but ended up as the one who walked. Chappell bailed following last year's World Cup after losing this power play. He believed players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were more interested in preserving their careers than India's cause. His fate was sealed when Tendulkar, the most God-like figure in all of sport, gave Chappell the public thumbs down. Chappell was brave and stupid taking on Tendulkar. One player arranged a dawn practice session with Chappell, then stood him up as an insult. The coach's Indian dusk soon followed.
Sammy Lee and Bolton Wanderers
There was a staff and player uprising last year against the former Liverpool player known as Little Sammy, as opposed to his predecessor Big Sam Allardyce. It didn't help when the Bolton crowd sang "you don't know what you're doing" a mere six games into Lee's reign. Lee was Calamity Sam. Getting flummoxed during interviews and being hyper-sensitive to criticism does not an English football manager make. Nor does a record of one win from nine in the sack-happy Premier League. Lee was supposedly obsessed with breaking out of Allardyce's large shadow, resorting to tactics such as renaming the team meeting room "the bunker" instead of "the war room". The players made their point about Lee, and to be fair it was probably a good one. Bolton have edged up the table - under Gary Megson - since Lee left the club by "mutual consent".
Ian Rutledge and the Black Sticks
The Aussie had his share of early success with our national hockey side but player unrest emerged when star defender Lizzy Igasan made herself unavailable, supposedly after an argument with Rutledge. The absence of Igasan in particular diminished Rutledge's chances of getting good results. After four years in charge, Rutledge called time in 2006 but declared criticism by former players was not the reason. He reckoned New Zealand Hockey didn't share his lofty ambitions for the team. "Our daughter is due to start school next year and we want her to get settled," said Rutledge, explaining his intended move back to Canberra. Sure.
Geoff Howarth and the New Zealand cricketers
Howarth was hit for six - with a reported $220,000 payout to ease the pain - after the infamous player misbehaviour tour to South Africa of 1994/95. Howarth returned all chipper despite a storm of public criticism, but quickly jumped while being pushed. To cut a long story short, Martin Crowe's autobiography, released a few months later, reckoned three-quarters of the team to England in 1994 called for Howarth to be replaced when they filled out questionnaires. Howarth had lost the players' confidence - losing his job was inevitable.
Glenn Turner and the New Zealand cricketers
The tough-minded Turner was the new sheriff in town, but Chris Cairns and Adam Parore fought the law - and the law lost. The two stars quit the 1996 West Indies tour early because of injuries, but their dissatisfaction with Turner was behind their unusual departures. The pair were fined by New Zealand Cricket for criticising the coach's people skills. But ultimately, Cairns and Parore were deemed too vital to competitiveness and marketing, and Turner was sacked against many predictions. A furious Turner reckoned new NZC CEO Chris Doig's showbiz ethos was the reason why he faced an unexpected final curtain.
