KEY POINTS:
There's a scene in an episode of Blackadder where Rowan Atkinson's conniving butler is talking to a pair of foppish actors.
The actors, it transpires, are superstitious about a certain Scottish play. It is bad luck, apparently, to say the word "Macbeth" out loud. Each time Blackadder says "Macbeth", which he does intentionally and often, to ward off the evil spirits the actors hop about, slap hands and pinch each other's noses while chanting: "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends."
Having adopted a similar philosophy for dealing with the specifics of the All Blacks' World Cup quarter-final meltdown, it's easy to imagine a fair bit of hopping and nose-grabbing taking place at NZRU mobile HQ yesterday.
Having studiously referred to the quarter-final defeat simply as "Cardiff"; and having avoided the words "Wayne" and "Barnes" like they were an airborne form of ebola, the All Black management's brains trust must have gone into apoplectic shock when lock Ali Williams jettisoned his Spiderman suit and cryptic ways to utter a few home truths on radio yesterday.
"And you've got to look at the ref," Williams said, neatly avoiding the W and B words - well one B word anyway, as it turned out.
"Seventeen unawarded penalties, that's bullshit."
Yes, it was.
And how nice it was to finally hear someone from the All Blacks camp say it.
Strange though, that Williams made the comments as part of his defence of coach Graham Henry.
"It gets to me how much you can attack one man [Henry]," he said. "Some of the ownership has to fall on us too, as the players.
"And you've got to look at the ref."
Yes, you do. Regardless of how much blame one apportions to the bloke with the whistle in comparison to say, too much sunbathing in Corsica, there's no denying Barnes was a significant factor in the game's result. But it's too late now to bring up He Who Shall Not Be Named in Henry's defence.
Henry had the chance to bag Barnes at the post-match press conference and on plenty of days since. Instead, he has chosen to stick to rugby's strict code of silence, preferring to let others draw their own conclusions.
In fairness to Henry, the alternative was to come across as a blame-dodger. Not much of a choice at all.
It was an object lesson that the first casualty of sporting politics really is truth. Williams seemed to grasp that fact when he dressed as Spiderman and uttered a load of old cobblers when it came time to express how he felt about facing his old mates in the Blues after being given the heave-ho by David Nucifora.
So why he would suddenly seize on the truth as a means of defending Henry is somewhat baffling.
Henry chose the politic approach over the English referee and manoeuvred rather expertly through the political process that followed the Cardiff incident to keep his job.
Those unhappy with Henry for doing so - and it is impossible to say how many people fit into that camp - aren't still upset about the World Cup. They're unhappy about the way the politics played out in the aftermath.
To start spouting the truth about Cardiff seven months after the fact is pointless. But, just for the record, the referee in the All Blacks quarter-final defeat by France at the World Cup was inept. His performance was inexcusable and certainly cost the All Blacks the match.
His name was Wayne Barnes.
Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends.
