Oh what a lovely circus. The Blues can barely win on the field, and now they are losing their cool with the media off it. In a nutshell, coach Sir John Kirwan has displayed the first public signs of cracking under the pressure, which doesn't bode well for next year.
As I understand it, the regular rugby media has generally found the great All Black wing excellent to deal with in his two and a half years as Blues coach. But not so at a press conference yesterday, I am told.
Kirwan needs to take a breath and get his public responses back in order. But the Blues board should take heed of what took place, because the signs weren't particularly good as Kirwan revealed a testy side at odds with his public image. It certainly made me wonder how he deals with stress and thus people behind the scenes, and whether this is why he struggles to retain assistants and get his team playing with cohesion.
The scenario was fairly straightforward. Herald rugby writer Patrick McKendry has broken two stories about Kirwan's succession plan: the first detailed the plan itself involving Tabai Matson, and the second revealed Crusaders assistant Matson's extraordinary visit to the Blues camp this week, which included talking to players. They were legitimate stories which raised interesting issues, and hopefully in a moment of more considered reflection Kirwan would agree.
But Kirwan turned the heat on McKendry during a media scrum at their Carrington Rd headquarters, including asking about his sources. It wasn't an overly heated or well organised attack, more words of frustration, but he must have pre-planned it. There was a touch of attempted intimidation in Kirwan's actions.
