KEY POINTS:
As the great All Black coaching saga unfolds with the agonising protractedness of a Middle Eastern peace negotiation, one of Graham Henry's most remarkable achievements has been overlooked.
He's brought about a situation in which John Hart, Laurie Mains, and Alex Wyllie are in perfect agreement.
This trio
hasn't agreed on anything - least of all who should be All Black coach - since 1985 when they opposed a ham-fisted NZRU effort to de-power the scrum. Now, however, they're unanimous - Henry should bow out and Robbie Deans should take over.
If that should happen, it will be a vindication of sorts of another of Henry's predecessors, the hapless John Mitchell. Mitchell believed all that mattered was winning the World Cup - he could treat the public, the media, sponsors, even his bosses at the NZRU like dirt, but if he brought home the big prize he'd be untouchable.
As a theory of survival it had the same logic - and the same flaw - as performing a high-wire act without a safety net.
By all accounts, Henry was assiduous in addressing the concerns and interests of "stakeholders". But the rugby community doesn't judge the All Black coach on his accessibility to the media or willingness to make a goose of himself in inane TV ads.
Mitchell was right. However unreasonable it may be, the All Black coach's job is to win the World Cup. Henry gave every indication that he understood and accepted that brutal reality when he took the job on.
By letting Henry go and appointing Deans, widely regarded as the power behind the throne during the Mitchell regime, the NZRU would in effect be tacitly acknowledging that Mitchell had his priorities right.
If there's any consolation to be salvaged from this carry-on, it's that we're not the only ones who turn the relatively straightforward process of deciding who should coach the national rugby team into a soap-operatic embarrassment.
For Springbok coach Jake White the golden afterglow of winning the World Cup lasted as long as it took a 747 to fly the team home to a heroes' welcome. Whether White jumped or was pushed, the vicious political manoeuvring and abusive rancour over the coaching position have dispelled the feel-good factor created by the Springboks' victory.
Brian Ashton's reward for getting an apparently hopeless England team to the World Cup final was to be portrayed as a bumbling clown in a couple of player autobiographies and hung out to dry while administrators conduct a leisurely review.
And across the Tasman two of the biggest egos to emerge from that continent, where shrinking violets are an endangered species and modesty is seen as a crippling social handicap, are engaged in an intricate pas de deux over the Wallaby coaching job.
Born-again Australian rugby supremo - I use the word advisedly - John O'Neill has declared his preference for Robbie Deans - yes, that Robbie Deans - so stridently that the other contenders must feel like ring-ins in a police line-up: if they get picked out, things obviously haven't gone according to plan.
But just when it looked as if the contest would generate all the excitement of a Saudi Arabian beauty pageant, a mighty big hat was lobbed into the ring.
There's no New Zealand equivalent of Alan Jones. Paul Holmes may have the name recognition but doesn't wield the political influence, while the idea of him coaching the All Blacks is at best a promising comedy sketch idea.
Twenty years may have elapsed since Jones last coached the Wallabies - or any rugby union team - but his sway in the cut-throat world of Sydney radio and ability to bounce back from scandal testify to his energy, populist instincts, ferocious ambition, and network of powerful friends.
NZRU CEO-elect Steve Tew might be nicknamed 'Teflon' for his knack of emerging from successive disasters more powerful than before but next to Jones he's a serial scapegoat.
If Jones does get the gig it might demonstrate that rugby isn't the hotbed of bigotry it's often made out to be. His sexuality has long been the subject of conjecture. A recent unauthorised biography dwelt on his sexual orientation at such length the author was accused of homophobia.
When Jones coached the 1986 Wallabies to a series win in New Zealand, a feat achieved by only three other teams, he was following in the distinguished footsteps of the late - and gay - Carwyn James who did it with the 1971 British Lions.
Coincidence? You - and John O'Neill - be the judge.
