Dick Tonks' squabble with Rowing New Zealand is plain weird

Dick Tonks is the country's most successful Olympic coach. Photo / NZME.

NZ body continue to negotiate with Tonks but athletes take priority.

Come on, Dick Tonks, lighten up and get your Olympic rowers humming towards gold medals again.

The spat between Tonks and Rowing New Zealand is plain weird. Are we really to believe that strained relations have reached such a boiling point over a very minor issue that Tonks feels he must down tools?

Tonks' grumpy claim that he is "finished" with Rowing New Zealand is tantamount to abandoning his crews just eight months from the Rio Olympics. If he is not part of the official camp, it becomes nigh-on impossible for him to remain an effective part of the campaign.

Even if he does, he is putting people through hoops who have got better things to do while creating needless distractions for his rowers.

Tonks is leaving the Olympic and five-time world single sculls champion Mahe Drysdale, who he has worked with for nine of the past 11 years, and the rising double scull stars Zoe Stevenson and Eve Macfarlane, in the lurch.

At the very least, he's disrupted their preparations. At worst, he'll force them to change coach with little time to adjust.

It sounds like crazy brinkmanship from a man whose love of the sport and unique persona are legendary. Tonks asks his rowers to go to extraordinary lengths to become world class. They need him to go the extra mile in this case.

Who cares if he doesn't get on with his bosses and is now duking it out about low-grade Chinese rowers training at Lake Karapiro? That is not a legitimate enough issue to cause this mess.

As awesome oarsman Hamish Bond pointed out, some crew members don't necessarily get on, but they still combine to point their boat in the right direction.

Maybe Tonks' status, that he set this whole amazing rowing success up, is clouding his judgement. Maybe he has been king of the patch for too long. Maybe RNZ don't do everything perfectly, but they have a lot of people and issues to take care of.

Having come this far, is Tonks really going to turn around with the finish line in sight? In a duel between administrators and an extraordinarily successful coach, it's probably customary to side with the lone man.

It would take extraordinary new information for me to side with Tonks. His timing stinks.

The rowers deserve better. And Tonks deserves a better exit from one of the great Kiwi coaching careers. Think again, Tonks.