KEY POINTS:
I know a family with a cat and a dog. The cat occasionally delivers rats from the bush to the family's living room and then, in the detached way of cats, sits serenely while its "gift" to its owners scuttles about the home, creating havoc.
The dog, of a terrier breed noted for their ratting, arrives just in time to see the rat bailed up underneath the family's bookshelves. The dog waits until the bookshelves are lifted, grabs the rat, trots outside and dispatches it.
This happened often enough for the dog to feel that the bookshelves possessed a magical quality; a kind of 'rat fountain', disgorging rats for his pleasure. He didn't quite connect the rats with the cat. So, until recently when he got bored with the whole exercise, the dog would sit for hours, staring at the bookshelves, waiting for the rat fountain's magic to blossom again.
This story came to mind when All Black coach Graham Henry disgorged a new theory last week - quickly following the previous week's when he wrote in the official test match programme at Wellington that he didn't want to answer questions pertaining to last year's World Cup debacle and thought we should all be looking forward now.
Well, of course he does. Why would any sane individual want to keep answering questions about something about as attractive as a turd in a blender when he could be gesturing in visionary fashion to the blue skies of tomorrow?
Now Henry says New Zealand didn't have a World Cup obsession, in response to an observation by England's Rob Andrew.
Huh? How's that again? I am reminded of the Winston Churchill quote: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to re-write it."
There is, you see, a small matter of a 47-page review by the New Zealand Rugby Union which said that, yes, we did place too much emphasis on the World Cup - and I'm not even going to crack on here about the 7863 ways in which we could disprove Henry's statement that we weren't obsessed with the World Cup. Only people who are (a) dead or (b) not born yet could fail to see the rather desperate spin inherent in it.
Which brings us back to the 'rat fountain'. The New Zealand rugby public have been, like the dog in the story, rather incredulously sitting at the foot of the bookshelves. Every time Henry opens his mouth about the World Cup, another rat appears from the 'rat fountain' and scuttles among us - and the terriers of the rugby public are not tiring of the sport and thoroughly enjoy dispatching Henry's messages to rat heaven; thereby prolonging the very debate Henry is keen not to air.
The NZRU are on a bit of a charm offensive. They need to - rugby is lurching from apathy to displeasure after the World Cup and Henry's re-appointment. They have apparently hired a PR company to help and, again, good on them. In another life, I was also part of a PR company and we similarly (although in happier times) had the All Blacks and the NZRU as clients. So here's a bit of advice, for free.
Shut the All Black coach up about the World Cup.
It's a bit like the celebrated Fawlty Towers episode where a concussed Basil Fawlty reduces a table of German tourists to tears by constantly mentioning World War II, even when he doesn't mean to. "Don't mention the war," hisses an out-of-control Basil. "I did but I think I got away with it."
Henry isn't getting away with it. Every time he mentions the war - even if he's trying to move people on - it damages the credibility and sustainability of his position; it unleashes more rats. Give it up. Don't answer the questions. Take your own advice and move on.
Not that I expect this free piece of consultancy to be taken up. Not when NZRU CEO Steve Tew delivers the gobsmacking line that they didn't think Henry's re-appointment would have created widespread disapproval.
What is wrong with these people? Here is a small list of things marginally more subtle and agreeable than the NZRU's re-appointment of Henry, stimulating Robbie Deans (whose appointment would have healed all the angst and obsession over the war, er, World Cup) to go to Australia:
1. Dynamite fishing in a goldfish bowl
2. Vomiting on your friends' wedding cake at the reception
3. Saying "are you blind, you absolute prat?" to the man sitting next to you before discovering that he is
Does Tew seriously expect anyone to believe he and the rest of the NZRU didn't see the backlash coming? That's like Ed Hillary saying he didn't know Everest was high.
Fair enough, admit the mistake. But the All Blacks don't need a charm offensive. They need to win. They need to win with some style; playing consistently with their best team; where rotation is what a ceiling fan in the dressing room does; so they move us all on from the World Cup debacle with the force of their rugby and the All Black tradition; not their PR strategy for winning hearts and minds.
