The disastrous events surrounding New Zealand Cricket administration this week remind me that managing an international sports team has to be one of the toughest and most thankless assignments a person can undertake.
On the surface, it appears to offer many rewards - including the intoxicating opportunity to get up front and friendly with famous players. There's also the opportunity for international travel, the prospect of wearing the silver fern and singing the national anthem on foreign sports fields. And sharing the adulation, should they return home as champions.
That's the upside which, in New Zealand's case anyway, happens far too rarely for our sports-mad populace. Understandably, there has to be a flipside for the blazer-wearers. In 2007, I had the opportunity to manage the All Golds rugby league team on a historic journey to the United Kingdom to play a Great Britain XIII. The centenary match was to celebrate 100 years of rugby league test football between the two sides.
In his briefing before the tour began, former Kiwi coach Graham Lowe spelled out my role in typical style: "Don't be too nervous; all you really have to do is pick the red wine each night."
How those words came back to haunt me. Two hours after playing the Great Britain team, I was still in the dressing room standing in ankle-deep mud, water and bandages, while the All Golds team were on the bus and launching into song. I knew then how Robinson Crusoe must have felt as some 40 discarded bandages and wet towels blocked the drains and all had to be extricated before I could head back to our hotel.
