Rugby: Italian job hinders career

Wyatt Crockett has not played a test since a tough All Blacks debut against Italy in 2009. Photo / Getty Images

It takes just one game for a reputation to be destroyed; for a career to be sunk with no hope of it ever being dredged up again.

Wyatt Crockett is likely to be reminded of the cruelty of perception later this year. He's been in storming form in 2011 - he has scrummaged well all season, carried the ball like a loose forward and even knocked the booze on the head to give him that extra aerobic edge he needs to last the full 80.

He should, really, be close to All Black selection; pushing John Afoa and Ben Franks hard in the minds of the selectors. But, no matter what Crocket shows the coaching panel in 2011, their minds will inevitably drift back to November 13, 2009 and a test versus Italy in Milan.

The human mind has an extraordinary ability to forget birthdays and wedding anniversaries but to recall with clarity events of negative dimensions - like every detail of an aspiring All Black's drama in a test that has no business occupying anyone's thoughts.

Crockett was hit by a perfect storm at the San Siro. He encountered one of the world's most technically awkward and ruthless practitioners on the tighthead and a referee who had one of the worst games in living memory.

Martin Castrogiovanni, the Argentinian-born prop, has turned the Italian scrum into one of the most effective on the world stage. He is strong, experienced and equipped with only a vague idea of legal scrummaging procedure.

In that fateful encounter in Milan, he was a menace. He engaged on the angle, bore into Crockett and somehow miraculously convinced referee Stuart Dickinson that he was the victim. Crockett was pulled up and down, across and about, and looked like a man out of his depth to all except those with a thorough knowledge of scrummaging. The penalties flowed for the Italians and 60 minutes of carnage piled on Crockett's reputation.

Worse was to come. In the final three minutes, the Italians laid siege to the All Blacks' try-line. After three successive collapsed scrums, Neemia Tialata was yellow-carded - forcing Crockett, who had been replaced by John Afoa, to return to the fray. Another 10 scrums packed down, most of which collapsed and resulted in Italian penalties.

It was an astonishing sequence - the All Blacks being tortured by Italy, unable to hold their end steady, leaving 83,000 fans wondering just how it was a penalty try didn't eventuate.

In those final minutes, Crockett should have fetched his international career a cup of cocoa and kissed it good night.

The tragedy for him was that the truth would never be allowed to get in the way of this tragic story. Immediately after the game, All Black coach Graham Henry was fuming: "I think there needs to be total clarity over what is required in the scrum. It's getting worse rather than better. It is spoiling the game as a spectacle. The last five minutes were a farce."

Before anyone could accuse of him trying to protect a poor effort by his troops, IRB referee boss Paddy O'Brien took the unprecedented measure of blasting Dickinson publicly.

O'Brien came to the All Black hotel in London on the Monday after the test, apologised to the coaches, and then tore shreds off the Australian referee for failing to see that most of Italy's scrummaging work was "purely illegal".

"Up here, they're crying that it should have been a penalty try. It should have been a penalty first scrum to the All Blacks. You've got a young guy trying to launch his test career and get things right and the referee is inaccurate. Then it's our problem. We've got to deal with the ref, which we will, just like Graham deals with a player who is not playing well."

All this should have provided some relief for Crockett, some vindication he wasn't out of his depth in the test arena. But the world doesn't work like that.

Scrummaging is a dark art. Men like Castrogiovanni get away with what they can and All Black rugby hasn't had the success it has had by bleating to referees. Kevin Skinner quietly went about "sorting out" the Springbok front-row in 1956.

Steve McDowall, Olo Brown, Richard Loe and Craig Dowd were all not the sort to let their opposite prop indulge in any nonsense. They ran their own kind of rough justice correction facilities where opposition props were rehabilitated.

Excuses can be made but they won't wash. The nation will always wonder whether Crockett has the mental edge, the nasty streak required to stand up for himself. The selectors have obviously carried the same doubts, as Crockett has not played a test since Milan.

They, like everyone else, will have been impressed by Crockett's work so far in 2011. A big part of them will want to believe he's got what it takes, that he could replicate his current Super Rugby form in the Tri Nations.

But as much as they want to believe; as much as they don't want to let a promising career fall victim to history, they are unlikely to recall Crockett.

They know what they saw that day in Milan and if Crockett is to be afforded the chance to fix his damaged reputation, it will almost certainly be on someone else's watch.