KEY POINTS:
What a man we have in Graham Henry. I want to say this now because in a few weeks he will either be elevated to the pantheon of national respect or consigned with some other great people to the dungeon of our disappointments.
Leadership is best examined before it is exalted beyond criticism or damned more than it deserves.
Leadership of Henry's quality is rare these days in any field, especially in elected positions. Where in the mayoral and council elections at the moment is there a candidate who inspires confidence with the same solid calm, the same quiet, resolute, clear-eyed assurance that he knows exactly what needs to be done and will do it?
Henry may be an orator in the team room but he is not in public.
He does most of his media duties with minimal engagement. Once a cricketer, he dead bats curly questions with a boring answer and meets straight ones with a touch of his mysterious private humour.
And he is more than happy for assistants to front up. He doesn't need ego boosts. He leads a staff as large as his playing squad and has the confidence to delegate and defer.
Leadership is easier to measure in sports than in most fields. Results speak louder than words and one adverse result can ruin a coach. What a waste that would be in Henry's case.
Rugby is a terrible game, grossly over-regulated. The rules have proliferated to a point where the players can't remember half of them and some are practically unplayable at pace anyway. The quality of matches, and sometimes the result, can depend on the whim of the referee.
The best referees understand this and regard their role as a discretionary art rather than rigorous law enforcement. But the quadrennial world cups are played under the gaze of the International Rugby Board which has written the rules.
Nervous referees in cup year can turn a close match into a lottery decided by innocent and trifling infractions such as entering a ruck from the side or colliding in mid-jump for a high ball.
If the game is capricious those who analyse it are worse. A match decided by a dubious penalty or a bounce of the elliptical ball is liable to be ascribed to the winners' complete superiority, the losers' lamentable ineptitude.
Graham Henry understands all this. If his team wins the World Cup he will wear his laurels with that same Mona Lisa smile he reserves for any success. If it doesn't win, he will take his lumps. Either way he will not say, "Let's not get carried away" although he says it so frequently it may be his motto.
As a former schoolmaster he has an educated attitude to success and failure. You work as hard as you can, you can't do more. He has done just about everything he thinks can be done to win this thing.
If he fails he will say, "Maybe there are things we could have done differently or done better". He says that often, too. But after the World Cup it would be just the musing of an open mind. You know he has applied all he knows about rugby, leadership, talented young men, inspiration, organisation, teamwork, team spirit.
He has built a squad of such depth and versatility that last season, when the All Blacks won everything that mattered, the next best team in the world were the players Henry had in reserve. But that was last year. The team has yet to rediscover the chemistry this season and the Cup is about to become a contest of sudden death.
Tournaments can be cruel to favourites. A contender can have a good day, a champion a bad one. The other leading contenders know that if they played the All Blacks three times they would be lucky to win once, but this time they need only win once.
In a knockout format the best can be beaten, which does not mean they cease to be the best.
Let me say that again, let me cry it from the rooftops with all the frustration emitted when hearing radio callers despair for our rugby, our schools, our politicians, our national character after any single, vital loss: it doesn't mean we cease to be the best.
Having produced the rugby world's most respected force, Graham Henry should not have to win this one damned lottery to prove the obvious.
Offnote: I hope he says nothing to endorse his former captain Tana Umaga's version of the O'Driscoll tackle in Umaga's newly published memoirs. Despicable things happen; I wish they'd admit it now.
