1. You always fire your coach if he fails. If you’d kept John Mitchell, I dare say you’d be in the final this weekend. I actually wrote to the NZRU (and bear in mind, I’m South African, living in South Africa) suggesting that the smartest thing they could do was to NOT get rid of Graham Henry. Look at what Clive Woodward learned from 1999. Think of the hunger he and his players had going into 2003. Think of the lessons Henry has learned, and the hunger the remaining players will have to get rid of the blight that is 2007. If you need anything to galvanize a team, that would be it.

2. The WC is over-rated. Teams try and pass off four years of inbetween rugby as an excuse for building to the next WC. How is this a fair swap for a campaign that, as with NZ’s, can fail from one bad referee call. It’s ridiculous. Somehow (and I don’t know how) the value of the WC needs to be discounted, diluted. It is big, but it shouldn’t be as big as it is. Firstly the format sucks, and secondly, well, it’s only once every four years. There’s too much time between ‘rematches’ and leaves everybody but the winners with a four year morning mouth.

Henry’s biggest failing leading up to this World Cup, I think, was his inability to settle on a first choice team. This meant that when the pressure was on, the team didn’t have enough glue from the past to bond them together, and they predictably fell apart. I submit that if Henry had done as Jake White has done, and maintained a high level of consistency in his selections, instead of the silly rotation policy, that he would not have struggled to overcome the pressure from the French in that QF. It would have been familiar territory. Personally, I think this is why South Africa have been able to dig themselves out of one or two holes in this WC campaign. Smit gets the boys together behind the try line and says “guys, we’ve been here before, and we’ve gotten ourselves out of this mess… we can do it again”.

World rugby, despite what Stephen Jones may say or think, needs a strong NZ. Heck, never mind need, we WANT a strong New Zealand. We respect Australia because they outthink us, but we respect NZ even more, because they outplay us. There’s a big difference in my books.

I for one hope that Henry wants to keep the job, and that the NZRU are smart enough not to repeat the mistakes of 2003. I think, if you do, and Henry does indeed learn from his past mistakes, 2011 stands a much greater chance of success. Otherwise, I agree. Your destiny will be to always lose at the WC’s.

So, Inky, that’s quite a big soap box you’re standing on. Strikes me you’ve got a point to make though.

Lord knows I don’t understand why anyone – male or female – would need to take out in violence a loss on any sporting field, but I don’t think NZ stands alone in this sad piece of society. In fact I don’t think this generation, or even this era has a mortgage on that – it is a sad reflection on humanity in general that even the Greeks and the Romans, during the “heydays” of their empires exhibited similar traits. But what you’r saying is we should know better – in fact we bloody well MUST get to know better.

Go Inky – run for PM, I’ll vote for you (and I’d say you will have a less gravelly voice than the encumbent).