When I gave up basketball as a youngster, I made the decision at the age of 20 that rugby would be my life, and I have lived by that promise. As I start out on a new business venture, I still maintain my involvement in rugby through my TV work and by mentoring coaches and players. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that one day I will work in the game full time again. Who knows? Never say never …
I have had a wonderful journey with the sport, and I have been fortunate to experience many different rugby cultures. At England I coached one of the finest forward packs the game has seen; at the All Blacks I coached some of the greats of the game, and although they started from a position of mental weakness when I took over, I felt I left the All Blacks in good health. McCaw, Carter, Mealamu, Woodcock and Muliaina became All Black centurions, so my so-called radical changes actually served New Zealand rugby for another eight or nine years.
While I’m on the subject of top players, I’ve drawn up two team lists: Probables versus Possibles. These sides are made up of the best players I have been fortunate enough to have coached. There are some really good players whom I have had to leave out.
My Probables team would line up as follows: Mils Muliaina, Doug Howlett, Tana Umaga, Aaron Mauger, Joe Rokocoko, Dan Carter, Justin Marshall, Lawrence Dallaglio, Richie McCaw, Richard Hill, Nathan Sharpe, Martin Johnson (captain), Phil Vickery, Keven Mealamu, Jason Leonard.
My Possibles, or second-string team, would be: Leon MacDonald, Ben Cohen, Richard Kahui, Matt Giteau, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Carlos Spencer, Matt Dawson, Jerry Collins, Neil Back, Reuben Thorne (captain), Ali Williams, Brad Thorn, Greg Somerville, Andrew Hore, Tony Woodcock.
I think you’d agree that those two teams would give each other quite a game; it would certainly be high-quality rugby.
Among my other achievements, I was the first New Zealander to cut through the Australian red tape that prevents foreigners from coaching in their environment, and I created a start-up side that eventually beat every other Super Rugby team in the competition. I took over a Lions side with a poor legacy and no self-belief, and helped create the confidence that saw them thrash a star-laden Sharks side 42-16 in a Currie Cup final. No one had coached the Lions to a Currie Cup final win at Ellis Park in 61 years.
I started out as a coach when rugby union was turning professional in the mid-1990s, and my involvement has spanned two decades of the paid era. Maybe it is because I have seen so much, experienced so much and expended so much energy on the game that there are times when I feel my heart bleeds for the sport and the direction it is headed. It would be remiss of me to conclude my story without a postscript dealing with the state of the sport and without suggesting some pointers on how I believe it should go forward. Perhaps some would see it as arrogant of me to pontificate on where rugby should be going, but I do feel I have done the time and, having coached and played in so many places and at so many levels, I am as qualified as anyone to offer an opinion.
To me, the modern game is only a game when the players cross the white lines. The rest of the time, most of the people in the process lack commitment and capability, and, in some instances, even credibility.
Let’s start with Super Rugby. The original concept behind this competition was to create the most attractive form of rugby in the world, and I was even measured on what I contributed in terms of making it watchable and entertaining when I first coached in the competition with the Chiefs back in 2001. But now Super Rugby has become a competition that revolves around carrying, tackling, kicking and catching. The breakdown is open to variable interpretations and sanction by referees, who officiate and rule on tackle and release in so many different ways that it becomes confusing. In short, there are too many rules and they are too open to interpretation. As a result, the game must seem complicated to those who are new to it and who really want to get to understand it.
Super Rugby was once the testing ground and the production line for the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies, but these days they are selected into their teams before the tournament has started – and let no one try to deny that. The NZRU manages its players during this tournament better than all the others, but that is only because they use the competition to identify talent and to progress their depth at international level.
The attrition rate and flow of talented players to the northern hemisphere, where the strong currencies make it difficult for us to compete, are draining the player pool in all three countries, to the point where coaches are now being asked to develop mediocrity. Consequently, there are players playing who just aren’t ready for elite competition, or never will really be good enough for the next level.
When it comes to player welfare, I sometimes wonder how long it is going to be before rugby union experiences its first major players’ strike. Something needs to change, and quickly, because the players are required to play too much rugby. It has to be a concern that, increasingly, the Rugby World Cup comes around with many of the best players out of action because of injury. This problem detracts from the event and from the sport as a whole, as the World Cup is supposed to be the showpiece event.
The game as a spectacle is also suffering because of the laws, as they are applied, and because there is too much over-officious refereeing. I concede that the introduction of the TMO might be a necessary evil, but it is slowing down the game, and I have never liked the modern trend of matches becoming mismatches, in the sense that because of some relatively minor infringement, one ends up with 15 playing against 14, or even 15 against 13.
Spectators come to watch 15 men playing against 15, and it should only be in exceptional circumstances – meaning that a real act of foul or dangerous play has been committed – that a red card should result. The way to get away from this, while at the same time discouraging negative play, is to introduce a booking system, such as in soccer. From my experience – and I have said this before – the one thing a player hates most is being denied the opportunity to go out and be the gladiator he is paid to be at the weekend. The prospect of being prevented from playing because he has been booked a certain number of times will surely be a compelling enough deterrent. It will also avoid a situation where a team suffers on the field with 14 men for 10 minutes at a time only for a judicial review to find that it had been an incorrect decision.
There are many unacceptable and confusing parts of the game, and rules that need attention. When there has been a questionable act during the game, the TMO and the assistant referees should refer to the referee and put a player on report for the judicial official to manage the process after the match. As the system stands, there is too much stopping and starting while television footage is studied during play. It has got to the point where the conditioning and fitness aspect is being taken out of the game, as teams that are under pressure can get a substantial reprieve while the TMO and the referees hold up the game to make their judgments. And, for many spectators, by the 50th minute the popcorn has just stopped popping.
Other ways to go about speeding up the game and finding more space that teams can play into is to ensure that scrums are set much quicker than they are – failing which, there should be a free kick to the opposition team, and I would propose that free kicks and penalties should be taken or tapped from anywhere along the 70-metre width of the field.
One of the laws I can never get my mind around is the one whereby a defending team does a good thing by holding an opposing attack up on the line, and then gets disadvantaged when the attacking team is given the benefit of the feed at the scrum. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Good defence should be rewarded with the defending team getting the put-in.
We need to find a way to get scrum attacks back to two passes or more, and maybe it is time to consider making a converted try eight points, with penalties and drop goals reduced to two points. That would be a good way to promote attacking play, as it would mean one converted try would be worth four penalties and not just slightly more than two penalties, as is the case now.
Crucially important is a revision of the offside rules at the ruck. We should create the offside line five metres back from the ruck and let the opposition determine how many players they want to put in to contest an attacking breakdown.
The referees should be firmer on the tackler, and make him release and roll away immediately, and we should make the fetcher have to lift the ball to be rewarded.
Goal-line defence is also an issue. It’s a free-for-all, with no consistent law application. And decisions on line-out driving-maul-defence (‘truck and trailer’) separations are confusing.
In general, referee decision-making seems to be becoming progressively more appalling, in my view. There are not many referees left who have actually played the game, and therefore many lack a proper feel for it. They are not measured specifically enough any more and are in serious need of development in their decision-making. SANZAR’s referee manager, Lyndon Bray, faces a huge task in his attempts to address this problem.
I think just about everybody would agree with me when I say it is also high time that referees are held more accountable for their decisions by facing the media in the post-match press conferences, in the same way that the coaches and captains do. I reckon there are even some referees who will agree with me on this.
Aside from these negative issues, however, the sport has developed enormously since I first started coaching in the first year of its professional era back in 1996. Recruitment has developed into a science that simply cannot be neglected or underestimated by any organisation that wants to be successful.
In my opinion, the time has arrived when coaching groups need a full-time ‘scout opposition coach’. His responsibilities would entail talent identification, looking out for players who are coming out of contract, and helping the head coach with exit strategies for players coming off contract within his own club or union. He would also be charged with the task of finding technical and tactical advancements on opposition trends.
There is also a need for full-time mental-conditioning coaches, who would have the task of ensuring that individuals can be optimised earlier, and that they can work happily within the parameters of the head coach’s approach and style. This function would help get the best out of the team.
Player development is slow, and this needs to be accelerated because, generally, youngsters are coming from the conveyor belt, meaning the school and age-group system, and this has lacked accountability. More effort needs to be made to get the best coaches involved at that level, rather than neglecting that phase of development and just assuming that, somehow, the best players will naturally develop on their own and just rise to the top like cream in a coffee.
I believe professional education or mentoring for young players – teaching them what it takes to be a professional and how to live the life of a professional sportsman – is a vital process that is generally neglected in South Africa. At the Lions, it was neglected completely.
The profession needs player education and development, which should take into account a player’s career after his rugby career has finished. With player pools having to become so much bigger, the dropout rate will be higher, and not all of those who make it into rugby go into rugby coaching or broadcasting, or other spheres of the media. So I feel there should be a system whereby players are encouraged to get work experience once a week. That should also lead to more balanced characters in the game and individuals taking a more holistic approach to professional rugby as a career.
Many people in the game favour the inception of a global season, and I am one of them. But the only way I can see that occurring is when – and note, I say ‘when’ and not ‘if’ – the Springboks and SARU decide to play in what will become the Seven Nations. The broadcasters will make sure that this happens, as will the players, as their piece of the revenue pie will get bigger if it does.
South Africa is in the same time zone as the northern hemisphere rugby nations, and there are already 250 South African players playing there. That is more than six full rugby squads.
If we do go into a global season, imagine what would be in it for the fans. They will be able to enjoy a world club championship played in conferences that are drawn out of the hat before each season. I envisage it being divided into pools of 10. Now that would be a refreshing move, wouldn’t it?
Once the knockout stages arrive, and their ‘Rugby World Club Championship’ season is completed, all the teams not involved would return to their national competition. The knockouts could consist of quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final.
Anyway, that is just food for thought. Although I am not into the politics of the game, I do like to think strategically about improvements that can be made to this wonderful sport.
And if there is one thing of which I can be certain, it would make no difference whether the fans are from Hamilton, Sydney, Durban or London – they will flock to the sport in their droves if we see games like the wonderful one between the Springboks and the All Blacks at Eden Park in the 2013 Rugby Championship, and which New Zealand won 29-15. That really got the adrenalin pumping and is exactly what the game needs – the tempo and the transitions between attack and defence were just brilliant. It is what we should be moving towards if we want rugby to flourish in the face of competition from rival attractions and other forms of entertainment.
And, ultimately, ‘entertainment’ is the operative word. I feel we may be nearing saturation point with the amount of rugby that is being played, and we must make sure that the product is entertaining and remains so.
If we lose that entertainment value, we risk losing the people who keep the rugby business going.