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September 3, 2011
Snubbed by the NZRU ... Robbie Deans. Photo: Steve Christo
Spiro Zavos charts the decisions that ensured Robbie Deans would be the coach to lead the Wallabies to this year's World Cup finals in an edited extract from his book, How to Watch the Rugby World Cup 2011.
HERE is the worst nightmare for New Zealand rugby: The final whistle has blown on the 2011 Rugby World Cup final. Amid the roar of the crowd, the fireworks and the pulsating music, the victorious Wallabies are smothering their coach, Robbie Deans, with high-fives and exuberant hugs.
If this happens, its genesis will be the curious decision by the New Zealand Rugby Union to reject Deans as coach of the All Blacks after the failed 2007 campaign. Why would New Zealand rugby gift the irreplaceable intellectual property that Deans had accumulated in his glitteringly successful career as an All Black and coach of the Canterbury Crusaders to their great rivals, the Australians?
The answer to this question concerns rugby politics. After the debacle of 2007, Graham Henry put his name forward late in the piece to continue coaching the All Blacks. He was not specifically told to do so by Steve Tew, the chief executive of the NZRU, as some have suggested. But Tew did not discourage Henry, as he should have.
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Stars in the making ... Kurtley Beale, James O'Connor and Quade Cooper with coach Robbie Deans. Photo: Getty Images
His tardiness was related to an initial crisis of confidence about his ability to coach the All Blacks to a World Cup victory, and to the anger expressed by the public over the team's failure at Cardiff. In the end, Henry decided that he could do the job. More importantly, he wanted to do the job.
There is a corresponding myth that Deans did not really want the All Blacks coaching job. He was supposed to have a $1m contract from John O'Neill, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, already in his back pocket. This is not true. O'Neill was definitely interested in signing Deans. Originally, the decision about a Wallabies coach was to be made before the NZRU had decided on an All Blacks coach, but O'Neill postponed it for several weeks so it would come afterwards, in the hope that Deans would be available. Deans applied for the All Blacks job at a time when the decision was going to be made after the Australian decision, making it very clear where his priorities lay: his first choice was to coach the All Blacks.
It was only after the snub from the NZRU that he applied to coach the Wallabies. Sources have told me that the presentation of Ian Foster, coach of the Chiefs, to the NZRU board was the best of the three they heard. However, Foster and his designated assistant, Colin Cooper, did not have the record of success of the other two coaches. The contest was really between Deans and Henry. Henry's presentation acknowledged the mistakes made in the RWC 2007 campaign and explained how these were going to be put right. Most significantly, he was able to confirm that Steve Hansen, coach of Wales at the World Cup 2003, and Wayne Smith, a former head coach of the All Blacks, were staying with him as part of a strong coaching team. Deans's presentation apparently ran into difficulties when he was asked who his assistants were going to be. He hadn't prepared for this question, believing the selection was essentially for the top coaching job. He offered some names of coaches he believed would make good assistants, but when pressed he had to concede he had not talked specifically to any of these coaches.
People involved in the decision insist that Tew did not issue an ultimatum against the selection of Deans. However, he did make it difficult, if not impossible, for Deans to get the job. The fact is that Tew and Deans did not get on. I was told by insiders that when Tew was chief executive of the Crusaders and Deans was coach, Tew found it impossible to ''manage'' Deans; he left Canterbury and moved to Wellington as chief executive of the NZRU to ''get away'' from Deans.
Why Tew was troubled trying to manage a coach as successful as Deans has never been explained. Nor has there been an explanation as to how he was able to convince the NZRU board to abandon the time-old system of a sub-committee of board members with playing experience selecting the All Blacks coach. For the first time in living memory, the full board interviewed the candidates and then made the decision.
This meant that board members with some experience of the changing room - among them Paul Quinn, a former Wellington captain, and Graham Mourie, a great All Black captain - were marginalised. Jock Hobbs, the NZRU chair and a former All Blacks captain, withdrew from the process because of a perceived conflict of interest: he is married to Deans's sister. This meant the elimination of another board member with All Blacks experience.
My sources are adamant, however, that Henry's reappointment was not a done deal. There was such an intense debate about the respective merits of Henry and Deans that it went on for hours before being adjourned without resolution. The board met again the next day. Finally, the decision was made to go with Henry. Deans's lack of a team of assistant coaches was deemed to be the crucial factor against him. The members thought the Henry team was so strong it could emulate the success of Clive Woodward, who went on to win in 2003 after his failed campaign with England in 1999.
This sounds something of an invented rationale after the event. The fact is that if Henry had not got the support of the NZRU board after he put his name forward, the board itself would have had to resign: it had endorsed the failed policies behind the preparation of the All Blacks for 2007. By voting for Henry to stay on, the board also voted for itself to stay on. Eight board members voted for Henry and only one for Deans. Thus it was that, with a one-vote whimper of disagreement, the NZRU handed over to Australian rugby a master coach with a point to prove about his World Cup credentials.
On December 14, 2007, the ARU chair, Peter McGrath, told journalists he was delighted to announce that Robbie Deans, coach of the successful Crusaders and a former New Zealand assistant coach, was the new coach of the Wallabies. There had been six candidates, five of them Australian, including Alan Jones, the controversial coach of the 1984 Grand Slam Wallabies. ''The brief of the selection panel,'' McGrath said, ''was to find the best man for the job, and the ARU board considers this appointment has satisfied this objective.'' Judging from the responses on an ABC radio talkback program the day Deans got his appointment, it was clear he had the approval of the Australian fans.
Talkback caller one: ''Well, if they don't want him in New Zealand, we'll take him. That's as long as he doesn't teach them the haka.'' Talkback caller two: ''Best provincial coach in the last decade. Why wouldn't you take him?'' Talkback caller four: ''I think an Aussie person at the moment who has an allegiance to an Australian coach should get over themselves and think themselves lucky for getting this bloke.'' This last comment was perceptive. Some powerful figures in the Australian rugby community felt it was wrong for a New Zealander to be coaching the Wallabies. The question was asked: ''How can a former All Black really have his heart set on defeating the All Blacks?''
The powerful figures were part of a coalition of former coaches and officials, former leading players, some current senior players - mainly from the ACT Brumbies - and the leadership of the Rugby Union Players' Association, RUPA. They wanted to get rid of the masterful chief of the ARU, John O'Neill. O'Neill had thwarted their attempt to sell out Australian rugby to Kerry Packer (for profit and power to themselves) when rugby became a professional game in 1996. He had successfully opposed RUPA's efforts to squeeze outrageous player payments from the ARU. He had blocked the many efforts of the recalcitrants to get their men into positions of power in Australian rugby. They saw Deans as an O'Neill appointment. If Deans could be diminished, O'Neill was vulnerable.
The process began immediately.
The new coach was given a nickname, ''Dingo Deans'', which presented him in a contemptible light.
Twelve new players were brought into the Wallabies by Deans in 2008, his first season in charge. He continued with this program of renewal, introducing a total of 27 players to test rugby in his first three years. By the end of 2010, only seven players from the Wallabies' 2007 World Cup squad survived. The motive for these changes was to create a competition for places in the starting XV. Senior players were put on notice that they had to perform if they wanted to stay in the squad.
A strict on- and off-the-field supervision regime was imposed. Squad members were not allowed, for instance, to bring anyone back to their hotel rooms before a test. When the star winger Lote Tuqiri broke this rule before a Test at Canberra, his ARU contract was terminated. Typically, RUPA tried to turn the incident into a power struggle between it and O'Neill. It failed.
The game plan of Eddie Jones and John Connolly, the two previous Wallabies coaches, for robot-like rugby was thrown away. At the first training session Deans held with the Wallabies, on a rainy day at Manly Oval, he told the players he wanted them to ''play what was in front of them''. He introduced games and exercises to give them the skills and the vision to do this. It was noticeable, too, how much time was spent on the set pieces, especially the scrums.
The former Wallabies prop Patricio Noriega was brought into the coaching staff as the scrum expert. While these changes were being implemented, with mixed results, Deans was pummelled by his critics. Before Australia's tour of Europe in 2010, Bob Dwyer, the coach of the 1991 World Cup-winning Wallabies, savaged him as being ''pig-headed, blinkered and bloody-minded … even the Jaapies are less pig-headed than us.'' Alan Jones, coach of the 1984 Grand Slam Wallabies, agreed: ''We're going down the wrong track. We've got to turn somewhere and turn before there's a big accident further up the road.'' There were calls for Deans's head.
But the Wallabies' coach was not for turning down any road suggested by Jones or Dwyer. He was adamant the squad was on the right track. ''I can tell you,'' he told journalists, ''that in 14 months' time, the Wallabies will be there peaking for the World Cup. Whether I'm there or not is a decision for other people. I'm tasked with getting this group into the optimum state at that point.''
A journalist then asked him a loaded question: ''Does this young and injury-plagued team have what it takes to win the World Cup?'' Deans's answer was succinct. ''Yes, it does.''
How to Watch the Rugby World Cup 2011, by Spiro Zavos
Penguin, $24.95
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...#ixzz1Wqe91Ay3
Well bugger me, I have always called him "Dingo Deans" (and "Aussie Rob") as a term of endearment and inclusion (along the lines of us pilfering Kiwi media talent as our own). Now I find out I was actually being nasty!!!
Mind you, aren't you a Kiwi too Spiro???
"Bloody oath we did!"
Nathan Sharpe, Legend.
indeed he is
he actually opened the batting for Wellington,in the NZ provincial comp(plunket sheild),on a couple of occasions
Elf1 probably played against him!