KEY POINTS:
Sometime in April, all going to plan, the New Zealand Rugby Union will find out why the All Blacks failed to win the 2007 Rugby World Cup. By the end of this week the union hopes to have chosen the coach to take the All Blacks at least halfway to the next World Cup.
It could be Graham Henry, who has said little in public about his team's failure in France. How awkward if he were to be re-appointed and the official review results in an indictment of his programme.
That is just one of the oddities of the review announced this week. Another is the timing. This seems very late to be launching a thorough post-mortem on the All Blacks' worst World Cup performance. It ought to have started months ago, when it might have helped inform the choice of coach for the next two years.
How can the selection panel members possibly make the right decision if they have not fully reviewed the management and programme of the incumbent? Their failure to do so in good time for their decision suggests they intended to take the easy course: hold the coach responsible for the failure regardless of all other considerations, and appoint the obvious successor, Robbie Deans.
Four applicants will be interviewed in Wellington today, Colin Cooper, Robbie Deans, Ian Foster and Graham Henry. Deans has a record comparable to none but Henry and, surely, the choice is between those two. It is a choice of continuity versus change, expansive Auckland flair versus Canterbury fibre, adventure and occasional risk against solid efficiency and an indomitable will to win.
Whichever of them is chosen, possibly by tonight, he would probably appreciate an official report on the 2007 campaign somewhat sooner than April. By then the players will be well into the Super 14, the coach and his assistants will have some idea of the shape of their likely All Black line-up and be making plans about how they intend them to play.
If a reappointed Henry could be embarrassed by an adverse review at that point, a favourable assessment could be just as awkward if Deans has been appointed. He might very well have renounced Henry's innovations, such as the constant rotation of players and the reconditioning rest from the first half of the Super 14. Yet it is quite possible the reviewers could find no fault in those elements of the squad's preparation and blame the quarter-final performance entirely on other factors, not least the astonishing lack of penalties awarded the All Blacks in the disastrous second half.
The strange timing of the review, and the personnel of the panel, suggests the exercise is intended less for the benefit of the Rugby Union than its public funder, Sport and Recreation New Zealand. A Sparc coach, Don Tricker, is one of the reviewers, Auckland lawyer Mike Heron is the other.
Sparc invests in rugby as a high performance sport of great value to the place of sport in national life. It was investing in success at the World Cup above all and Sparc's own managerial procedures will require a comprehensive review of how and why the Rugby Union's effort did not pay off.
NZRU chairman Jock Hobbs welcomes the review as an entirely independent exercise which he expects to benefit both the All Blacks and the union. It will be less a study of rugby tactics and coaching strategy than the management of the campaign.
If it is a check-list of Sparc's goals and expectations of the All Blacks it will not enlighten anyone very much. But if it provides a a conclusive verdict on what went wrong it will be worth the wait. By then, the chosen coach should have put this year firmly behind us, and give no more reason to look back.
