KEY POINTS:
The international season is only just upon us and already there seem to be fun and games surrounding one-upmanship leading into the World Cup.
I have read with great interest comments from Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and co on the style of the opposition, the laws, scrum difficulties and other matters of importance to the success of the All Blacks - and central to the failings of others.
Some remarks may have been taken out of context but I am concerned about the tone and message being sent.
Sometimes New Zealanders start believing the game of rugby is exclusively ours and dismiss the rights of anyone north of Cape Reinga to dare to compete and upset our supposed dominance.
The classic line about us knowing so much about the game that we put the air in the football comes to mind.
Maybe New Zealand should just stick to making our teams the best they can be, and leave others to worry about fixing their perceived problems.
I guess it is all very well to note the French team tried to slow the game down as much as possible last weekend. The reasons are obvious. They needed to negate the pace of the All Blacks and allow their players to regroup in defence.
It seems a bit rich to criticise these tactics when New Zealand teams have turned the slowing down of ball to the opposition into an art form.
I recall playing club rugby against the likes of Andy Haden and Gary Whetton, then the All Black locks.
We would assign one specific player to stop these guys jumping at the lineout - by foul means or fair.
We also developed scrum tactics to destroy any chance the opposition had of clearing the ball.
We had loose forwards whose only purpose was to ruin all opposition second-phase ball and we played some pretty dreary rugby. But it worked, and we won more than we lost.
The mastermind behind our negative tactics was ... G. Henry.
Put simply, you maximise your resources and attempt to negate anything of potential from the opposition. Over the years the All Blacks may have been one of the most cynical teams around but we haven't complained, particularly as, invariably, we have been winning.
With due respect, do the All Black selectors expect France to just roll over?
What would they be telling their players if the teams and their relative situations and personnel were reversed?
Should we be telling the northern nations how to run their internal competitions and how to select players for test matches just three months out from the World Cup? We appreciate little of the ownership and money issues of the Northern Hemisphere and how different their problems are to ours.
We have seen the showpiece of Southern Hemisphere rugby watered down by the resting of more than 20 players for the first half of the competition and the rotation of others.
And not just from New Zealand. Witness the shambles in Australia and the influence Springbok coach Jake White has on domestic selection issues.
Then witness the clever manipulation of our test teams in a way which has brought consistent victories but no definite clue as to what comprises the best starting XV.
Have these developments been good for promoting the international game around the world - or just served our needs and desire to win the World Cup?
Ideally, we want all our players to remain in our competitions, but this concept has long gone. Just as our top coaches seem to benefit both financially and intellectually from a stint overseas, so might New Zealand's top players.
The treadmill of the Super 14 and Air New Zealand Cup could become numbing after a few campaigns and the lifestyle and cash up north must have just as much appeal for a young 20-something as a grizzled old player or coach.
So, maybe supporters, media, management, players and administrators should take a big breath and concede others have the right to conduct their sport in the best way for them - just as we do for ourselves.
