Chris Rattue: Joseph a hero for defying Big Brother

Jamie Joseph stood up for what he believed in and put his cause first. Photo / Getty Images

Jamie Joseph lost a battle in Rotorua but he won an important war. The Wellington coach is the man of the hour, the saviour, especially for those of us old enough to remember when provincial rugby was vital because of the tribalism involved.

Joseph is a hero because for once, someone within the regime has stood up to the big brother NZRU and put what he believes is his own cause first.

In terms of what is immediately best for his Wellington team or the All Blacks, you could argue that Joseph may have been right or wrong in ignoring All Black demands to play test men Cory Jane and Neemia Tialata against Bay of Plenty.

As for the All Blacks, their selection policies have been so haphazard that they are hardly credible. One minute they are resting people, the next encouraging them to play year round. But you can also understand Graham Henry's frustration, unable to get two test men lung-busting game time.

Bottom line, though, is that Wellington have rights in this, and a lot of us are sick of the overbearing NZRU controlling so many rugby lives. The game needs to breathe.

Joseph did what HE thought was right, and not what some overlord telephone whisperer told him to do. Self-centred, obsessive pig-headedness is what creates great sports clubs and in the end, I'd back Joseph to win out. He's building a team, his way, and knows that slotting guys in and out sporadically on someone else's whim is not the way to create a team ethos. It might work in some sports, but not rugby. In the process he's taught the All Blacks an important selection technique, if they care to observe.

Here's another reason to cherish Joseph's actions. He created a story, with Jane's help, and decent stories are few and far between in New Zealand rugby. The controversy meant you watched that game in Rotorua with added interest, which is what sport is all about.

Yes, I'm in the media, so I love a good story. But everyone in sport does, surely. A media mate and I recently tried to recall the last really good news break in New Zealand rugby, a jaw-dropping yarn that made you sit up over breakfast. We reckoned it was the revelation, one from the Herald's pages, of Tana Umaga's impending retirement on the eve of a test in Scotland in 2005.

New Zealand rugby has an unhealthy and obsessive belief that any real news is bad news. I sometimes wonder what it thinks the media should fill their channels and newspapers with all week as it helps create interest in rugby.

Conflict and controversy, opinion and debate, real news, are the lifeblood of sport. But this has escaped New Zealand rugby. Added to that, the player agents, whose clients' careers and incomes are controlled by the NZRU, live in fear of the national body and its secrecy demands.

An example. In most sports throughout the world, the transfer of players is something that fuels interest. The media and fans argue and ponder, forever and a day, whether this bloke should go there, or that bloke there.

In New Zealand rugby, such news is treated like a prefect pinning something to a school notice board.

You might blame our rugby media for that, and say they aren't doing their job. But when faced with a sport that has a universal obsession with not telling the media what is going on, both on and off the record, the journos fade through exhaustion and frustration.

Here is a prime example.

When Daniel Carter - that's Daniel Carter, the world's greatest first five-eighths - is contemplating bypassing Canterbury to join arch enemies Auckland, it gets a few lines, late in the piece, for a couple of days. It should have been a rip-roaring story for months.

Rugby deserves to crash, the way it has treated the public.

You will never hear most of the opinions that actually do exist in New Zealand rugby because the sport operates like a cult. And if the rugby bosses have their way, you'll only hear of the biggest stories at the very final stage, preferably after it has happened.

Even dear old Robbie Deans copped his title-winning Crusaders being ripped apart by the NZRU in 2007 with barely a whimper. Can you imagine what Alex Ferguson would say if some pen-pusher from London told him that half his Manchester United team would be put on ice for half a season?

In a subconscious way, this wall of silence puts across a message that the game doesn't matter, that nothing that goes on is important. A malaise sets in. Rugby could get away with it in the old short-back-and-sides days, but not to the same degree any more.

Do they really think we all want to sit at home, counting the days to when the World Cup starts. Nine hundred and seventy four, nine hundred and seventy three, nine hundred and seventy two - oooh, what fun.

The game itself - including the talented youngsters and the sort of action we've seen from the NPC - is in pretty good shape. Despite obvious flaws rugby is often more entertaining and spectacular than it was in the days when the country really did care about it en masse. Jamie Joseph gave rugby a real story, one with wider implications about how best to prepare rugby teams. His actions were about parochialism, the sort which stirs the blood and can make the national team great again.

At last, some real life. It was a breath of fresh air. As for the national rugby interest, blokes who scrap for what they want and believe in will produce better footballers and All Blacks, and that's what Joseph has showed his team.

The "pissed off" Jane is the unfortunate meat in the sandwich and I admire him greatly for speaking out against Wellington's decision. As an aside, Jane's reaction has revealed something real about the man's character, and way more than the patronising sound-bites the rugby mafia would like you to think the game and its people are all about.

The NPC is doing okay without the use of the video referee system, but Wellington's try against Bay of Plenty in Rotorua showed why the technology is vital at the professional level. Try- scorer Scott Fuglistaller hadn't so much taken out the corner flag, he was almost in the corner dairy when the alleged touchdown occurred.