Oliver's book lifts lid on boozy All Black culture

Anton Oliver confessed that he had serious issues with the drinking culture amongst the All Blacks. Marty Melville / Getty Images

All Black hooker Anton Oliver has lifted the lid on the booze culture within the All Blacks, saying it hit new lows during the reign of John Mitchell and Robbie Deans.

In the book by Dunedin writer Brian Turner, which is due for release this week, Oliver is highly critical of some aspects of the All Black culture.

However, the issue that will resonate loudest is Oliver's candid description of the heavy drinking involved with being an All Black.

Former manager Andrew Martin was largely lampooned when he outed the All Blacks as serial alcohol abusers following his departure in 2002.

Mitchell and Deans, the coaching staff before and during the 2003 World Cup, denied it was an issue. Oliver clearly disagrees.

The hooker's concerns came to a head on Mitchell's first tour in charge of the team, to Ireland, Scotland and Argentina in 2001.

After the Ireland test, Oliver writes that Mitchell and Deans were on the last bus back to the hotel. "I didn't think it was right for the coaches to be out drinking that late with the boys. I'm one who believes that it's fine for a coach to have a few drinks with the team in the team room, or in the house bar, but otherwise there's a need to keep one's distance."

By this time it was clear Martin and the coaching staff weren't gelling as a team.

Not all players enjoyed Martin's officiousness either, including Andrew Mehrtens, who as designated judge, set out to embarrass Martin at a team court session following the Scotland test that followed the Ireland match.

"He was asked to consume a lot of beer, rapidly, and was soon in serious difficulty. I hated what was happening. Unbeknown to me, Martin had been sick, vomiting the night before, and suffering from diarrhoea as well. Everyone was being asked to drink far too much. Lots of boys were off their faces, but Mitchell and Deans did not move to intervene to prevent Martin's humiliation."

Part of the reason Oliver was concerned was the next day the team had an 18-hour flight to Argentina.

"Halfway through the court session I stopped drinking altogether, I was so disgusted by what was happening. I remember talking to Tana Umaga and him saying he was disgusted too ... We had several young men in the team and I thought, 'We are teaching them that this is what it is to be an All Black - to drink lots of booze'. I can't deny that by this stage I thought Mitch's social behaviour was inappropriate at times and set the wrong sort of example ...

"Next day, before flying to Argentina, a recovery session was scheduled at the local pool. We were all sitting on a bus waiting. For whom? Mitchell and Deans. Someone had been sent to find them. They came running out through the foyer like two naughty school kids looking a bit worse for wear."

Oliver writes that the scene at the airport was embarrassing, with Ben Blair's shoes "sticky with booze to which muck had stuck". Oliver apologised to NZRU chief executive David Rutherford over the state of the team. "He shook his head and said he was well aware of what was going on ... Martin got it in the neck from them [Rutherford and NZRU chairman Murray McCaw] for they saw it as his territory."

The All Blacks narrowly beat Argentina and Oliver, with other senior All Blacks, approached Martin and told him, with no small amount of prescience, that unless major changes took place, the All Blacks would not win the World Cup.

Of course, Martin was sacked shortly afterwards and Oliver was dropped during 2003.

However, it would be wrong to suggest alcohol features in the book only during Mitchell and Deans' time at the helm.

Oliver admits that at times he had drunk too much as an All Black, particularly after his debut test.

"I got plastered afterwards, which I continued to do occasionally thereafter until a test against the Boks at Ellis Park in 2000 ...

"Somewhere along the continuum things had to change; there is too much at stake now. To me - and Andrew Martin thought the same - we were going backwards.

During the famous 1996 tour to South Africa, Oliver talks about how it wasn't the done thing to abstain from a drinking session, particularly if you were part of the dirt-trackers.

"I refer a lot to the drinking that went on in the All Blacks. It is because it was such a large part of life on tour. This is something that characterised the All Black scene for years, something that, in my later years, I and others, including Doc John Mayhew and Andrew Martin, were concerned about. Unless you were able to duck it on religious grounds, it was hard to avoid and to be honest, nobody wanted to avoid it. Excessive drinking was accepted, but in time this attitude had to change."

Of the All Blacks coaches Oliver played under, he clearly had the least respect for Mitchell, the man who dropped him before the ill-fated 2003 World Cup campaign.

"To me, [Wayne] Smith, [Tony] Gilbert and [Andrew Martin] were right to insist that off-the-field values required improvement ... Clearly, Mitchell and Deans did not think that mattered to anywhere near the same degree that their predecessors did," Oliver writes.

"To me, Mitchell's work ethic wasn't what it was trumpeted to be, nor was he unusually astute."

Oliver said he was initially supportive of Mitchell, though he had "some reservations".

"He appeared to lack some confidence in himself and took advice from a few who seemed to have programmed him to speak and act in ways that weren't naturally him ...

"Mitchell had his 'life coach', Tony Wynne, with him. He took a session with the team. Few could understand what Wynne was saying. Tana Umaga and Norm Maxwell, for example, asked for clarification."

On tour Oliver had issues with Mitchell and Deans' treatment of players, feeling particularly aggrieved that the player who missed the most tackles was humiliated the following week by having to wear white gloves, as in a traffic officer waving traffic through.

On another occasion, new All Black Nathan Mauger was told in front of the team he didn't deserve to be an All Black. "I kept thinking, 'I can't believe the coach is saying this. I noticed the body language of the players. It spoke of extreme anger and incredulity'."

Oliver is also extremely critical of Laurie Mains. In a chapter titled "Highlanders Hullabaloo", he writes: "By the end of the 2003 Super 12 competition the Highlanders franchise was an acrimonious mess."

It's clear Oliver blames Mains for the bulk of the problems, but doesn't spare captain Taine Randell, saying his attitude during this period left him "puzzled" and "dumbfounded".

"After the 2002 season, many of the players were extremely unhappy; some were disillusioned.

"They felt Laurie was too often petty, needlessly picky about some matters, and was manipulative in ways that frequently left them feeling uneasy and insecure."

Senior players thrashed out some issues with Mains at the end of that season, but were dismayed to find 2003 heading down the same path. They were flogged at trainings but little time was put into game plans and rugby-specific work.

"For us, then, it was business with Laurie, and the senior players thought that he had broken promises made in November the previous year. This is where the rot started to set in."

Mains would often call snap team meetings without prior knowledge before trainings and would bawl out those who were late. He also had an obsession with food that Oliver found bordered on the ridiculous.

"The rule was no fat, no cheese, no eggs, no mayonnaise, no butter, but margarine was okay, for some reason ... I found Laurie's food-restriction fixation excessive."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY