KEY POINTS:
With time ticking down in Saturday's night's final and Auckland clinging to a six-point lead, word was sent out to the players that a drop goal might be a good idea.
"At the end there, the boys were working towards a drop goal," coach Pat Lam said at
the post-match press conference.
Um ... really?
If they were, it sure wasn't obvious. No leather was scuffed in anger, in any case.
Now, don't get me wrong, Lam's Auckland were simply superb this season. They took their entertaining brand of rugby and added a rock-solid set piece and enough defensive steel to build an aircraft carrier. They were great. A pleasure to watch.
The players, coaches, administrators, trainers, ball boys, matchday security staff, hotdog vendors and groundsmen all deserve a thumping great pat on the back for their efforts.
But ... when it comes to the dart art of kicking drop goals, Auckland are no better than the rest.
In fact, they're among the worst of a pretty bad lot.
Drop goals in New Zealand rugby are on the verge of extinction.
In this year's national championship, there were just five. Southland's Blair Stewart kicked two, while Tasman's James Foote, Manawatu's Matty James and North Harbour's Tusi Pisi each kicked one.
Last year was even worse, with just two kicked - one by Stewart and one by Andy Ellis.
The year before there was only one, by Jimmy Cowan.
Eight drop goals in three seasons. Eight. Is it any wonder, then, that the national side couldn't arrange a simple match-winning face-saving droppy against France?
This great nation, sadly, suffers from a severe shortage of quality dropkickers.
Andrew Mehrtens was the last decent exponent, slotting 23 in his career.
Many of today's leading scorers, including Daniel Carter, have never kicked one at championship level.
Just 12 players who were active in the 2007 championship have a dropgoal to their name. Stewart and Foote have three apiece. The rest all have one.
Now, I'm no Graham Henry, but it seems doubtful World Cup quarter-finals are the best times to be practising new skills.
In an age when we can wreck our domestic competitions with reconditioning windows and rotate our players so frequently they could be used to drill for oil, surely there's room for a little emphasis on droppies?
Perhaps all of the first fives and fullbacks should be withdrawn from the opening rounds of next year's Super 14 and sent to a clinic with that dropkick Janie de Beer? Sorry, I meant dropkick clinic with that Janie de Beer.
Or maybe the NZRU could issue a directive that a minimum of four droppies must be attempted per match or the coaches will be stripped of their Ford Explorers?
Or maybe the global game could accept that dropgoals are a boring, cowardly way to score and reduce their points value to one (or less), thus eliminating one of the ways in which dull, negative teams can make World Cup finals while the only nations who possess an ounce of creativity sit and mutter on the sidelines?
* On the subject of great ideas, it was with some surprise I received a call this week from Sky TV chief executive John Fellet saying the pay TV operator favoured a change to the national championship playoff format.
The concept of a top six playoff series modelled on England's Super League, which this column proposed a fortnight ago, was "intriguing for a number of reasons", Fellet said.
As is the way with these things, however, Fellet wasn't just calling to praise the idea.
The column had suggested Sky was the real power behind the throne in New Zealand rugby.
Not so, said Fellet.
For starters, the playoff structure was "not our format", he said.
"I know we get accused of controlling everything about rugby but it was [the NZRU's] format in wanting to go with the top eight teams."
Point taken.
Secondly, I suggested - as I had been told by Auckland Rugby Union officials - that Sky determined the night on which teams played their semifinals.
Again, not so, said Fellet. The top-seeded union had the choice of night. Auckland chief executive Andy Dalton had phoned Sky and told them that his team would play Hawkes Bay on the Saturday night. So I guess Sky really doesn't have that much of an influence on the way the game is run.
Certainly journalists had plenty of time to ponder that on Saturday night at Eden Park when the post-match press conference was delayed for the best part of an hour.
The reason: Sky wanted to broadcast it live on the Rugby Channel.
