KEY POINTS:
Warren Gatland's success as Welsh coach was an occasion to wonder whether it should also be a time of reflected New Zealand glory or bewildered exasperation about forfeited talent.
There are those who push the line that Gatland will return from his overseas stint an even better coach, as a way of justifying his needless exit.
That contention must seem pretty thin as they survey the mass Grand Slam celebrations in Cardiff and another troubled start to the Super 14 for the Gatland-less Chiefs.
However, the same people will argue that Gatland did not make that much difference last season, when he assisted the Chiefs to finish a squeak outside the top four after a ragged start and then controlled Waikato when they were beaten as provincial quarter-finalists.
Those assertions miss a few points.
Gatland had already done his OE. He had coached Ireland and taken Wasps from the club cellar to three premiership crowns and a Heineken Cup - before returning to coach Waikato to the NPC title in 2006 and then assisting Ian Foster at the Chiefs last year.
In his first year as Chiefs coach in 2004, Foster took the side to the semifinals but has not repeated that success. Any number of compelling reasons can be found. Bottom line though, the results were not there.
However, Foster was co-coach of the NZ Juniors, and if we are charitable, that more than anything must have blurred the thought processes of the Chiefs and NZRU last year when they dished him out an extended contract. At that stage the Chiefs were struggling to find a victory, yet Foster was rewarded while the competition was not even half completed. It was a half-arsed decision.
It said more about Foster being well connected in rugby's political landscape than his assistant. It also blocked Gatland's aspirations; Gatland was not going to hang around as an assistant when that coaching accord was already strained.
He had done his time. He was ambitious, he had a CV which stacked up, he wanted to stay in New Zealand - but he was being pushed away.
So Gatland went, eventually, when a swag of international coaching roles opened up after the World Cup. He chose Wales, not because that job had become the coaching curtainraiser before the All Blacks, but because they had a reasonable talent pool, they paid plenty and they asked him.
As Gatland briefly settles back into family life in the Waikato, that region's rugby supporters must be asking why more was not done to encourage Gatland to stay and impart his skills here.
The OE-is-best-value mob will point to the future. A Graham Henry, Steve Hansen, Wayne Smith coaching triumvirate honed offshore equals World Cup success. Yeah right.
