from the movie Weekend at Bernie’s, a comedy about a bloke who dies and his mates cart him around pretending he’s still alive. Larkham is a fairly shy, impassive person, not demonstrative at all, and this was his teamamtes’ nickname for him.

My wife alwaays thought Bernie was a good looking sort, but then she also likes Phil Kearns. There is no accounting for taste.

Cheers

Poetry!

Cheers & best wishes to one of the greatests geometry teacher in the world!!!

greetings from Italy!

Marco

Handlilng current players huge ego’s is our biggest issue in Australian rugby today and there are not a lot of players that are like Larkham.

How do you hand out the tough decisions to highly paid players who are prepared to go behind your back (a la Nucifora) and attempt to knife the coach to a bunch of spineless administrators who are happy to listen and, possibly act on, this kind of political assasination?

We need to have player input into how to win but player power is putting the patients in charge of the Asylum.

David Knox was the Peter Hewat of his day. Great skills combined with an ability to be missing when the hard defensive work had to be done.

Michael Lynagh was not my favourite either in his early days but then he grew in stature and proved to be one of the bravest 5/8ths we have ever had. He would put himself into tackles and situations that no 5/8 should ever be in. I would say that the amount he improved and changed in a Wallaby jersey reminds me of Chris Latham.

Funny how some players grow in the team and others shrink?

I think the raging debate over best full back between Burke and Latham could be over this afternoon if you 2 keep at it!

Larkham was a good full back and a superb 5/8 end of story.

Burke and Gould were Australia’s best full backs in my 30 years of watching. Latham has built himself into a great full back but there were many in the early years who thought he would never make it off the wing. I have prayed for his demise due to his Campese style full back play on several occasions and finally he has proved many people including me wrong.

I’m a Tah supporter, but not so one-eyed that I’d pick Burke over Latham. After all, Latham is really a NS Welshman anyway and I have a great deal of respect for Matt Burke. I might even pick Burke to play for my life, but I’d go with Latham if choosing a team I’d prefer to watch. The goals are a big plus for Burke to be sure, but I think Latham has scored a lot of tries in the last few years that Burke would not have – the amount of work that goes into his finishing shows it’s not just brilliance, it’s sheer determination too.

As for defence, I agree Burke was phenomenal and raised the bar for a 15′s defence. But Latham has been rock solid since 2002 and if you’ll recall, in that first Lions test in 01, after Macqueen hooked Latho for mising Robinson, Brian O’Driscoll ran straight into Matt Burke, who missed him and let in another try.

But as you say, debate will rage. Getting back to the topic, I can’t see either of them being able to adapt to 10 as Bernie did.

Burke was the absolute pinnacle of schoolboy rugby in his time – no mean feat when you’re part of the Joey’s production line of Wallabies – and at Eastwood club level was skipped straight out of the Colts program into seniors where he also excelled. For the Australian Schoolboys and NSW he also proved his worth, despite the state’s poor record in the S12. In Test rugby he had every gift you could want from any of your backs, plus the ability to kick for points as well. If you don’t think he delivered on his attacking potential, you never saw him play – I recommend you get a copy of the 1996 Bledisloe Test in Brisbane and watch Burke run from his 22, dodge the entire Kiwi back row, outsmart Cullen, outsprint Lomu, and then stride out into the corner ahead of the fast-closing Jeff Wilson for one of the greatest individual tries in Bledisloe history. That’s just one example – Matt Burke 24 – All Blacks 16 in Melbourne in 1998 being another. Look at his contributions to some famous games without scoring tries: 23 of the 28 points in Sydney 1999; 24 points against the Boks in the 99 semi; 25 against the French in the final.

He picked up a few injuries after this, but was still a great player, with winning kicks in Bledisloe matches and try scoring on NH tours. Within a couple of years he was forced into other positions at provincial and Test level to accommodate others (including Latham). I also note that after 2001 – basically the last time Burke played fullback, Australian rugby went into a fairly well-documented decline, in part because we started picking players out of position all over the field. Thanks Eddie Jones!

As a contrast, Latham took longer to peak than Burke because expectations were much lower. His pre-Wallaby days amount to barely anything in terms of potential because he went to a state school and didn’t take up rugby until much later, when after a stint with Randwick he was put in to NSW on the wing. Rightly, he found that unsatisfactory, and made the move to QLD where his pro rugby life kicked off. Certainly he is a brilliant attacking player, but these last three Test years of Latham’s ascendancy have been under a different coaching regime than Burke’s best work (Macqueen was a noted conservative, believing rightly that defence wins Tests), and with no serious competition for the spot should be commended for pushing himself. Latham is a fabulous counter-attacking fullback and his clearance kicks are phenomenal, but his defence has necessarily been dragged to a professional level since his shocking start to the 2000 Bledisloe in Sydney, abject failure in the first 2001 Test against the Lions, as well as some poor positional work in 2003 against a rampaging England.

Certainly his peers rate Latham highly when it comes to S12/14 but is his success in winning awards a product of his being a shining light in an ordinary QLD team? I can safely say that while Latham is a brilliant and exciting attacking player, and is now one of the top fullbacks we’ve ever had, as Test level player I’d rather have Burke, because over his career he scored a bucket of points and did a magnificent duty preventing the opposition from scoring theirs.

A debate that will rage for years to come I’m sure

I’m sure I’m not alone in rating Latham over Burke, who I don’t think ever really delivered on the promise (certainly in terms of attacking threat) of his early pre-Wallaby years, while Latham just kept improving. Lots of northerners rate Latho the best 15 of recent years.

Greg, agree about both Wilko and Noddy, who played more freely as a 12. I do think Wilko was a good distributing 5/8th for the Lions in 01, but apart from that he’s a kicker and a tackler, and close to the best in his position at both of them.

There is a distinction between greatness and complete competence.