Richard Loe: Player power is gutless and counter-productive

Player power is something I do not have a lot of time for and I wasn't sorry to see Wales go down to Ireland by 31-5 after players apparently played a big role in the resignation of former coach Mike Ruddock.

I guess the last time it reared its ugly head here was when Jed Rowlands coached the Blues in 1999 and David Nucifora's parting of the ways with the Brumbies before he came to Auckland.

When you come right down to it, player power doesn't work. I think it is also spineless and gutless. Players sometimes forget they are not bigger than the game and there was a classic case of that in Wales when captain Gareth Thomas and others apparently engineered matters to get rid of Ruddock.

Also, Gavin Henson is the 'Flash Harry' Welsh bloke who didn't do much out here with the Lions and then went back home and wrote a book about Wales' Grand Slam year and the Lions tour. In it, he criticised just about everybody. Wales were winning when Henson came on as a replacement. He'd criticised Brian O'Driscoll in his book and you could see the Irish grow another leg upon his arrival.

I'm not blaming Henson for Ruddock's demise. From what I've read, he wasn't involved at all. But he did think he was bigger than the game - and he has that in common with players who use collective power to get rid of coaches.

When all is said and done, Mike Ruddock might have ridden on the coat-tails of Graham Henry and Steve Hansen a bit but his achievements are concrete enough. He won a Grand Slam, beating the England team, no mean feat. He coached Wales to within a whisker of beating the All Blacks. So why get rid of him?

The coach is the head man. He makes the rules and the running. I always used to say that the best coach in the world was the one who was selecting you. And you had a job to do to repay his faith.

Any New Zealand player - an All Black or a Darfield under-13 player - has it drummed into his core that each player has a job to do and you do your own job properly before worrying about anyone else.

There is nothing more certain than a team of players acting against the coach will not play well. Wales, once Ireland started to get on top, looked like they didn't know what to do. That is the mark of a side which has lost its way. And yet this was essentially the same Wales team, give or take a few injuries, that won the Grand Slam.

It is always the coach that carries the can - yet he's the man who can do the least about it if those on the field aren't performing.

I bet some people are starting to point the finger at Nucifora at the Blues now. Whatever the problem is at the Blues, I bet it's not Nucifora. It's hard to look into the Blues camp with any certainty right now but my gut feeling is that they are worrying about the connection between the forwards and the backs. I think the main problem starts after eight and ends after 10.

No one can doubt the talent in the Blues team. They have plenty of skill and brawn and brains - and they have players who have done the business before. But they have had that loose connection in the first three rounds and are taking their minds off the job they should each be doing and are worrying about that area.

That's not Nucifora's fault. That's the players. It was the same in Jed Rowlands' day. The Blues finished ninth in the Super 12 that year and Rowlands got the bullet. But he had a team with fine players - players who were quite capable of winning the Super 12. Was it Rowlands' fault they didn't do well?

Or was it just that the team got into politics and backbiting instead of having the balls to get on and do the job. You know, you see it when a coach is sick and can't attend a game. Nine times out of 10, that team organises itself and stirs itself to win. They show some real guts. That's what's needed. Not player power. Player performance.

-HERALD ON SUNDAY