Paul Lewis: Change style or go fishing

There's no point pressing for the dismissal of Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen. But there might be some advantage in forcing them to accept some help or to change their thinking.

Because their thinking, to paraphrase what Henry said about Liam Messam when he was dropped, is losing games.

Among the worst moments of the aftermath of last weekend's test loss to the Springboks was the intransigence of the coaching panel. We had the right game plan, said Henry, the players didn't execute it properly. That's right.

The Germans would have won World War II if the Luftwaffe had been on their game. The All Blacks would have won the 2007 World Cup if they had executed properly.

Big Steve Hansen said thanks very much but, no, they didn't need a specialist's help in the lineout - even though it looked more like an amoeba growing another appendage than a lineout (and that's being kind) - because they were close to getting it right.

Wayne Smith went on TV and said the All Blacks had played the razzle-dazzle stuff because the coaches felt they weren't up to taking on South Africa at the controlled game of set-piece confrontation, battle for possession and kicking for territory.

Sorry, what? Are you kidding? An All Black team that can't play the tough stuff? Might as well call in sick or go down the road and have a milkshake, as the inimitable Snow White used to say. Henry has also said publicly that the All Blacks were likely to lose some matches this year.

And we wonder why this is an All Black team with the worst case of sagging confidence since the 1971 Lions came here and laid waste to the notion that the All Black forward machine was the best in the world.

It's not worth replacing these blokes because, frankly, there is no one else. Putting a novice - and that's all we've got left - in charge of the All Blacks and telling them not to come home until they've got the World Cup would be about as clever as New Zealand trying to invade Australia using sheep suicide bombers .

The coaches are signed on until 2011. The NZRU are about as likely to spit them out now as Clayton Weatherston is to convince New Zealand that, yes, he really was the victim.

Yes, they have some problems. Our players aren't as good as they have been in the past - whether depth or form issues. The Boks are a good side, the best in the world at present, but not as good as we are making them out to be.

So the defensiveness and negativity inherent in the coaches' statements is an alarming insight. Change is needed in the All Black psychology before anything else.

Confidence is being sapped by the coaches' attitudes, game plans, strategy and tactics designed to play into the hands of new rules which encourage stiffened defences; predicating against the helter-skelter, run-it-from-everywhere stuff they were trying to pull off.

The All Blacks limply waved the Springboks on at lineout time. The coaches are wary of committing players to the leap so they can guard against the Springboks' rolling maul and get players to the breakdown faster.

They don't do rolling mauls themselves because the forwards coach says New Zealanders aren't very good at it. Hmmm, let me see, we're not very good at kicking so let's give that up too. And drop goals. Oh.

They have often chosen safe-hands players in the back three who can field kicks, kick the ball back and tackle.

So blockbusting wingers who could win games don't get a trot because of their iffy defence.

When you add all of this up, it's a defensive strategy. Everyone thinks that because the All Blacks try to run it from everywhere, it is an attacking strategy. It isn't.

Instead of focusing on what the All Blacks can do well, we are taking our cue from the opposition, handing them large helpings of confidence on a plate, with tomato sauce and cheese sprinkles.

The Boks look at the non-leaping in the lineout and their chests swell. Got them there, they think. They look at the safe-hands backs waiting for the Bok kicks and know that they have the opposition worried. The chests swell more.

The All Blacks seem to be wavering; almost as if they don't believe in the game plan they are asked to execute; as if they fancy the opposition's tactics more.

Well they might. It's pretty simple - play possession and position, trust your defence and the points will come. This is the All Blacks. If we don't have players to contest possession and set a platform in test rugby, then find them, even in our reduced gene pool (reference: Owen Franks).

At international level, coaches formulate a game plan, select the players to execute it, create an environment of belief and then the players do the business. None of the above seemed to apply last weekend.

Worse, the almost slavish attachment to the game plan has deepened worries this All Black team can't think on its feet. Mils Muliaina, in his recent book, pinpointed the problem when writing of the 2007 World Cup quarter-final disaster: "We were so set on bashing out this game plan which we always believed was going to work. Clearly it didn't. And no one stood up and said: 'This isn't working. Let's go back to something different'."

The problems of 2007 clearly remain.

The NZRU, if they are going to leave the coaching incumbents intact, could usefully re-brief them. They could also insist on a lineout expert. Their thinking needs to change, forcibly if need be. You can understand the logic of the sizzle stuff - it has worked before and it is playing to a strength.

But the opposition are ready for it now, the rules work against it and the cost has been too great. It was supposed to be smart but it just felt like surrender.

So, hands up those who think all that'll happen? Oh, I think I can see one way over there. No, no ... it was just a man carrying a fishing rod. My mistake. Yet that's what we can all do if this coaching team doesn't shake up its ideas.

Go fishing.