Dialogue: Only the poppies who need cutting are cut

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

Broadcasting from Australia last weekend, Murray Deaker waxed lyrical about the coverage in the Australian media - full-page portraits in newspapers and tributes on radio and television - of the brilliant career of Wallabies captain John Eales who was about to play his last test.

Then, with cringing inevitably, came that awful phrase. It was a sign of Australians' sporting maturity, Deaker said, that they could treat their sporting heroes with such happy acclaim. Why couldn't we do the same? Why were we plagued by - wait for it - the tall poppy syndrome.

Perhaps the reason the win-one, lose-one All Blacks are playing so aimlessly is that our commentators are constantly chewing this mindless pap of platitudes.

Tell me, Murray, which New Zealand sporting stars over the past year - as a slice of time - have been cut down as tall poppies? The Warriors? Absolutely not because they have played consistently above themselves all season, a team of grafting unknowns with guts. I've heard nothing but praise for the players, the coaches and the management.

A few years ago, when the Warriors were a team of smart-mouthed stars blinded by the glare of their own publicity, staggering under the weight of their wallets, everyone I know had nothing but contempt for them. The taller the Warrior poppy then, the more we slashed at it - and quite rightly so.

The other day the women rowers came back from the world championships with silver medals. Bright, modest young women, they had done their earnest best. They were given the full media treatment. Did you hear a single word of criticism? No, nothing but congratulations.

And what of Rob Waddell, Olympic gold medallist, the tallest poppy New Zealand sport had last year. Did you hear one sour word?

And our world champion squash players, Susan Devoy and Leilani Joyce? Nothing but admiration.

Sean Fitzpatrick, the last in a long line of great All Black captains? We'd have given him an Eales-like send-off except that he had no closing night third act because he expected to come back from injury. Sadly, his playing career petered out.

So who are these heroes about whom we've been so churlish and small-minded?

Or is it just that we're not hero-worshipping the All Blacks, which one could certainly infer from Deaker's comments?

Well, which hero? Anton Oliver? I was calling to him through my television as the lineouts became Chaplinesque: "Make it simple, for Gods sake! Make it basic! Put Maxwell or Jack at three and get that simple throw right."

Has he not noticed that every other top test team in the world when it's desperate for the ball on its own throw, especially on defence, puts its lineout specialist at number three and gets that easiest of throws right?

The Australians have consistently out-thought the All Blacks, who even seem to know that. After the test win the previous week, Oliver said proudly that to beat the Springboks you had to out-muscle them.

Then he referred in a shoulder-shrugging way to the match they had lost so ingloriously to the Wallabies a fortnight previously in Dunedin as like chess, and implied that was beyond them.

It seemed a way of saying, "Were tough but stupid."

And a few days before last weekend's test, the Australian coach was quoted as saying the lineouts were critical to an Australian victory.

He wasn't being prescient; he knew they could make that happen.

There was a moment of revelation in that last test before Chris Latham scored his try. Under the high ball, Jonah Lomu's body language bespoke utter confusion. He simply didn't know what to do. (Oh dear, I shouldn't slash at a tall poppy. I should delude myself that he's flawless.)

That bewilderment is symptomatic of All Black performances since that World Cup debacle. They don't seem to know what to do when the heat's on.

A while ago I read a magazine story about gritty Wallabies winger Joe Roff. It was a warts-and-all picture of an interesting, complicated, guitar-playing loner. It didn't set out to knock him, nor did it flatter him. It was intent on presenting a public figure as he is.

I've never read an equivalent story about an All Black because they are cosseted by their minders, pampered, over-managed, psychologically over-tuned, retrospectively excused and over-protected from their public. Why does our media allow that?

The All Blacks keep apologising for losing their composure as though composure is like reading-glasses or slippers. These fulltime professionals talk about eliminating simple mistakes.

John Eales is an extraordinary man. He is athletic, resolute, calm in the face of fury, a great field commander and a decent, sensible bloke. We have nothing like him in New Zealand rugby, nothing quite like him in New Zealand sport. The Australians were quite right in giving him their accolades.

So what's next, Murray? An intelligent, critical appraisal of the All Blacks, as Tana Umaga seems to suggest? An invented, straw hero to worship in happy delusion? Or just hand-wringing and crying into our cliches?