What a shame Sir Graham Henry was forced by Sanzar to apologise for his refreshing honesty in commenting on "blind" video refs. And what a shame he didn't take the opportunity in his apology to make Sanzar squirm for their grim, humourless custodianship of our rugby etiquette.
Sanzar felt fining Henry was over the top, asking for a public apology instead. Henry may have preferred the fine but said: "I want to apologise to Sanzar and to the match officials involved for my comments, and for any offence they may have felt, as this was certainly not my intention. My intention was to try to respond to media questions in relation to matters I thought were important, in an honest but humorous style. I clearly failed to achieve that and in some respects, I accept my comments went too far in criticising the match officials."
Sigh. We in the newspaper business are not unfamiliar with apologies. We've been known to make a few and, fair play, if you have made an error, then the best way is to admit it. But if you read Henry's words carefully, he makes no apology for his views - just the way he expressed them.
Quite why anyone cares enough to punish coaches who criticise officials is puzzling. Surely, in this day and age, a bit of controversy in sport is a good thing; disagreeing with the referee is part and parcel of sport though, as the Herald on Sunday's Sideline Champs campaign is showing, it should never spill over into foam-at-the-mouth invective or even violence. But Henry didn't do that and a running debate over an issue like a referee's error brings healthy focus on a sport, usually good news for sponsors, marketers, the brand, fans and the media.
The opportunity he missed, however, was to make an apology which isn't really an apology. What he's done does kind of come under that general heading - but we in newspapers know there is a quasi-apology that can be made when we get something wrong but where the reality is actually worse than the mistake.
