KEY POINTS:
Two of the rugby players I most enjoy watching in the current era made the news this past week for different reasons.
Richie "Who me?" McCaw was both applauded and criticised (depending on allegiances) after playing to his usual high standard in the All Blacks' victory over South
Africa while Aaron Mauger, who also played a significant role in the win, was headlining the newspapers with a post-match plea for the protection of "Who me?" (so christened by the Australians because of his wide-eyed look of innocence and disbelief anytime a referee dares to penalise him).
While it is fraught with danger to take a headline as gospel, when you have neither all the statements made by a player or the context in which they were made, it seems reasonable to assume in this instance that Mauger felt the skipper got a raw deal from the Springboks.
I'm not certain that was the case.
Given his loyalties, one can understand Mauger's motivation but it's a bit like past players recalling matches in which they played 20 years ago. Sometimes their memories are so good, they remember things that never happened at all.
Similarly, when you have a blinkered approach to achieving your team goal, you can see no evil in your side but plenty in the opposition. Perhaps Mauger's comments were merely a shot across the bow at the referee next assigned to an All Black-South Africa epic, but it seems to me that for the most part, McCaw only gets what he deserves.
If you are a flanker and don't live on the illegal side of the offside line it's then that you're truly on a hiding to nothing. Indeed, most players hover offside nowadays because referees have a mysterious and unexplained reluctance to penalise those who creep into the supposed no-go zone.
As a much admired personality in the game, McCaw gets away with this even more than the average Joe, and subsequently opponents take exception and do things, the like of which, one gathers, Mauger took exception to.
"A lot of it is coming in from the side of rucks and mauls," said Mauger. "It's a bit average, really."
Average it may be, but so is any other fudging of the laws, and while anything bordering on the violent should be abhorred, it's hardly surprising that McCaw attracts such attention.
It's one of the less attractive perks of the job when you're as good as he is.
He'll keep testing the referees, they'll keep letting him get away with more than he should, and he'll keep getting smashed by frustrated opponents. The circle of life.
The Mauger quote which may have caused the odd chuckle in the Wallaby camp preceding tomorrow's first Bledisloe Cup match was his claim that "we play in a positive fashion, concentrate on fundamentals and don't worry about scrapping too much".
One cannot question the All Blacks' capacity to play in a positive fashion with the ball in hand, but Wallaby coach John Connolly and his staff are far from convinced that there was much positive in the New Zealand tactic against both France and South Africa where the flanker on the left side of the All Blacks' defensive scrum was detaching early to pressure the No 8 and halfback.
"Their backrow was offside regularly," Wallabies coach John Connolly claimed.
Obviously Connolly is keen for referee Marius Jonker to keep an eye on McCaw and Jerry Collins, and, in providing a gentle pre-match reminder to ensure the laws of the game are upheld, perhaps prevent any similar occurrence of that nasty retaliation tactic of South Africa's which so raised Mauger's hackles.
While the genteel members of the Australian pack are certain not to stoop to such lows as those big bad South Africans apparently did in Durban, it is hoped for the sake of the objective viewers of tomorrow night's encounter that Jonker and his touch judges strictly police the offside law.
With Mauger and 13 other mates to help him, I'm sure no real harm will come to McCaw either way, but the law is there to ensure a more flowing spectacle and provide advantage to those who wish to play in the positive fashion Mauger referred to.
Nobody should blame McCaw, Collins, Phil Waugh, Rocky Elsom or anyone else if they flaunt the offside line. They are looking for any advantage they can get, not a Scouts Award.
It's the referee's responsibility to stop players cheating and, for some unfathomable reason, their practice of late has been to go soft on that particular area. If the whistle blowers toughen up on offside, everybody will be better off , "Who me?" McCaw included.
Andrew Slack is a former Wallaby captain.
