Rugby League: Before sacking Endacott, NZRL should look within

By MURRAY DEAKER

Rugby league's rumours are usually more accurate than the Warriors' defence, and over the past week it has become common gossip among league fans that three members of the New Zealand Rugby League board want to ditch Frank Endacott from the Kiwi coaching position.

Apparently, Bernie Wood, Bud Lisle and Bill McEntee believe the Kiwis' appalling performance in the Anzac test is sufficient reason for dumping Endacott.

If the rumours are right, Frank has two supporters in chairman Gerald Ryan and Bob Haddon, with Wayne Morris wisely having kept his own counsel and now holding the balance of power. The board meets to discuss the matter next Friday.

Before this board makes Endacott its scapegoat, it needs to have a decent look at its own performance.

It was the board that gave up home advantage and the exciting Wellington venue. This would appear to have been done to accommodate Australian television audiences, who wouldn't have been interested in watching a game early on a Friday evening.

We were originally told that this forfeiture of home advantage was to be compensated by the Aussies paying $500,000 to the NZRL, but the latest news is that this has not been forthcoming and payment is now not likely. Amazing!

The board also agreed to give up the right to have a neutral referee. For this test match the referee, the touch judges and the video referee were all Australians. Ludicrous!

The NZRL board again failed to secure the release of the British-based players in accordance with the international agreement which clearly states that such players should be in the country where the test is being played five days before match day.

The Paul brothers and Richie Blackmore didn't arrive until the Tuesday because their English clubs took no notice of either the international regulations or the NZRL board's requests. Pathetic!

Before the board sacks Endacott it should look at its own actions leading up to the test. It may decide that its own failure to secure home advantage, neutral officials and the reasonable release of overseas-based players were contributing factors to the Kiwis' failure.

The main reason for the failure was unquestionably the loss of eight players through injury, many of them experienced and essential members if the Kiwi line-up is to be effective and competitive.

New Zealand league is not strong enough to compete against any Australian team when so many players are unavailable through injury.

Perhaps the recent successes of the Kiwis have given the board a false feeling that New Zealand league is strong.

One glance at the NRL competition table, with the Warriors languishing near the bottom, should be enough for even the most incompetent administrator to admit all is not well on the New Zealand scene.

We are constantly told that one of the reasons the Warriors have failed is that there is no depth in our own national competition for them to call on.

Logically, if there isn't depth to support a team near the bottom of a club competition, there is no way of filling an international team with adequate players.

For us to compete against Australia we need our top players all available and an even playing field. The last six times we played the Aussies before the recent Anzac Day test we had those factors in place. We won three of the tests and they won three.

That would also be the right result at the board meeting next Friday if Wayne Morris votes with Ryan and Bob Haddon. Presumably, Ryan would then use his casting vote to keep Endacott in the job.

Hopefully, it won't come to that. What the NZRL needs right now is to show its solidarity, strength and commonsense by voting unanimously for Frank Endacott.