Chris Rattue: Coach-speak can't hide Blues' failings

Blues coach Pat Lam. Photo / Getty Images

Coach-speak. Sometimes you want to gather up this self-serving nonsense and jam it firmly from whence it came.

Pat Lam was "very pleased" after his Blues lost to the Crusaders in Christchurch.

Why?

Because he's trying to make himself and his team look better than they are. That's why.

Which is why all coaches pick on little things that don't go their way and magnify them out of proportion to what went on, while finding tiny battles they won while losing the war. The funny thing is that winning coaches never add up what went wrong for the team they've just beaten.

The problem with coach speak is that journalists are bothering to actually write this stuff down and feed it to the masses.

In a 24/7 news world, you've got to fill the space up somehow, so this tripe gets an overly strong hearing. And if coaches stay on message, the message will get through.

When a coach next reveals that his team tried hard, any hack within hearing distance should try hard not to write it down.

The Blues were their usual bungling selves in Christchurch. Their tactical kicking was particularly bad.

The Crusaders weren't exactly at full strength, with five very good forwards either sidelined or making their way back from the bench.

This was a chance for the Blues to strike.

Yet a once-proud rugby region is now just one of the pack, and, on the evidence of Lam's reaction, resorting to manipulating the press and public into thinking they are getting somewhere.

The Blues scored one try, an opportunist, quirky effort to halfback Alby Mathewson, when victory was beyond them. They created little else.

The Blues have been hammered by inept administration and an inability to settle on a style of game and the types of players - in ability and character - capable of putting that plan into action.

Now, after a defeat, we are to thrill to the coach's revelation that "the boys worked hard" and "I'm pretty proud of the forward effort" and "we really took it to them".

Pardon? Scoreboard: Crusaders 33, Blues 20.

Auckland was once the home of the most feared, awe-inspiring provincial side on the planet. Not any more.

All Black careers even go prematurely backwards. Keven Mealamu continues to battle bravely and John Afoa, whose scrummaging worries the All Black selectors, is prominent around the field.

But Tony Woodcock appears to be in reverse, and I thought it would be a good few years before those remarkable words came tumbling out.

Woodcock is no World Cup certainty from what we've seen this year. If you want to see what high-energy props look like, track the Crusaders' Franks brothers as they stop everything in their tracks and then some. Their childhood backyard games would have made for interesting viewing.

To mimic endless New Zealand TV commentators: I don't know what goes on in the frontrow. But what the hell, let's have a stab at it, and say that Woodcock is having a slow start, and slow starts shouldn't extend this far into the season.

Isaia Toeava has gone from a promising kid into a promising adult, the Blues can't find a decent halfback or first five-eighth among a million or so people, Joe Rokocoko is playing in his own shadow, and Jerome Kaino - who hits hard - should make discreet inquiries about joining a proper team like the Crusaders, where his career could go ahead in leaps and bounds. Seriously.

For anyone who witnessed the great days of rugby in these parts, nights like Saturday are heart-achingly depressing, especially as you know there are plenty more to come.

This is not nearly as painful as reading that the Blues' coach is very pleased after his team were spat out by the old enemy yet again. Bear in mind that Todd Blackadder's mob are operating with dodgy outside backs, many of whom would have struggled to make the wider training group (don't you love the modern parlance) in Crusader teams of old.

The Blues were never going to win that game, and the result did not turn on Rudi Wulf's intercept pass.

Conceding that intercept try should not have been a bugle call to run up a white flag either. There were still a whole 25 minutes left - if the Blues were indeed on top, they could have remained so, and fought back. That's what the Crusaders would have done - you can bet on that. The Blues lost because they are not as good as the Crusaders, on or off the field. As simple as that.

The Super 14 isn't a training run and Auckland rugby should not be an also-ran. And when you lose to Canterbury, you are absolutely gutted. Gutted.

Down in Wellington, All Whites and Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert was in raptures on returning from Los Angeles.

"I'm in such a good place, I don't want it to end. It's just such stimulating stuff for the game..."

Fair call, in some respect.

The Phoenix have been a revelation.

As for the All Whites though, they were hardly stimulating against Mexico.

Boring, uncreative and hopelessly outclassed more like. In the past three games the All Whites have managed one headed goal.

You don't expect them to whip Mexico - although a New Zealand team did just that in Auckland about 30 years ago - but you can hope for more than what we saw.

The All Whites are creating little, and their highly regarded strikers are failing to make something out of nothing or nail the half chances that are there. This is not good enough for a World Cup-bound team.

In other words, don't believe the hype that somehow the LA game represented a nudge forward, or that it was a worthwhile exercise.

Herbert has been scrupulous in how he juggles his two jobs.

All Whites have struggled to get into the Phoenix lineup, and his club players carried a heavy workload in Los Angeles where the coach could have helped the Phoenix by giving them more rest. So full marks to him there.

But there is a serious conflict of interest when Herbert speaks.

An independent club coach, and club, should have been frustrated and angry at losing players (and their coach for that matter) to a dud international on the eve of a hugely important, sellout semifinal.

The Phoenix need to be aggressively selfish and demanding to further their cause. Professional sport is a blinkered, no-holds barred business. Every moment counts.

At the very least, the lack of complaint about the All Whites' intrusion suggests Herbert's dual role prevented the Phoenix making a vital point about the need to protect their interests.