New Zealand, All Blacks Brad Thorn, right and John Afoa, left, react after Thorn scored a try against Ireland in the Rugby Union International at Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008. AP Photo/Peter Morrison
The All Black legend Sean Fitzpatrick has launched a bitter and self-serving attack on New Zealand rugby. But should anyone take notice of his comments?
In my opinion, they should not because he (along with Phil Kearns and Francois Pienaar) forfeited their moral authority in rugby matters when they tried to steal rugby from the IRB for the Packer media empire.
First, though, Fitzpatrick’s comments.
He told interviewer Phil Gifford that, compared with the Super 14, the Premiership and Heineken Cup rugby is better played and more enjoyable to watch.
‘What’s happening in Super 14 is lacking in structure. The teams that are doing well, the Bulls and Chiefs, are the teams that are playing with structure. Unfortunately, with the short-arm penalty, it encourages teams and players … to cheat. The Chiefs Vs Blues game was probably the worst and most disappointing game of rugby I’ve seen.”
Enough already.
You get the drift of the diatribe. It is straight from the Uusual Suspect’s manual of nonsense where ‘structure’ is a code word for the scrum/drive/penalty/kick game and where a scoreline of 9 – 3 is the desired outcome.
It also endorses the constant refrain that Northern Hemisphere rugby is better rugby and more entertaining than Southern Hemisphere rugby. This refrain is being challenged now, even in the Northern Hemisphere, with England being accused of being the most boring team in world rugby to watch.
These issues that the slow-plod game is great to watch, that the ELVs take the structure out of rugby, and that the Southern Hemisphere game is ‘helter skelter’, are so phony they could only be invented in a Fleet Street pub.
Do the Crusaders or the Highlanders play ‘helter-skelter’ rugby?
Ask the Bulls, a team that Fitzpatrick praises. Both these sides got on top of the Bulls in the scrums and forced an even contest in the lineouts in a show that New Zealand teams can play structured rugby with the best of them.
If any New Zealand team plays ‘helter skelter’ rugby it is the Chiefs. But Fitzpatrick has rather bizarrely suggested that they are the only New Zealand team that plays structured rugby.
The point here is that early in the Super 14 season, the Chiefs scrum and lineout were a mess.
Fitzpatrick tries to give a responsible gloss on rant by suggesting that New Zealand’s obsession with ‘free-flowing’ play will “eventually undermined the All Blacks’ supremacy.”
Although New Zealand is the direct context, it is clear that Fitzpatrick is spouting the tiresome anti-Southern Hemisphere rugby rhetoric that passes for analysis in much of the rugby commentary in the United Kingdom.
The answer to this nonsense is that if Northern Hemisphere rugby is so superior in tactics and play, why is it that the Southern Hemisphere sides dominate Northern Hemisphere sides, and that Southern Hemisphere players and coaches are recruited to play and coach in the Northern Hemisphere and not the reverse?
What Fitzpatrick did in 1995 in an attempt to sell out New Zealand rugby and the world game for $300,000 was totally unacceptable behaviour from a man whose stature, reputation and subsequent living were created by the rugby organisations he was trying to destroy.
If readers think this is a bit harsh, I’d like to take them back to the Bledisloe Cup Test in Sydney at the end of the 1995 season. The Wallaby captain, Phil Kearns, made an enigmatic speech after the Test asking the crowd to stick with the players.
I was standing beside the great All Black captain and coach Brian Lochore as we listened to the speeches. “This might be the last Bledisloe Cup Test ever,” I said to him.
With a look of infinite sadness of his face, Lochore replied: “You might be right.”
That night the All Blacks were driven to the home of a Packer executive to sign up with the rebel rugby organisation. Jeff Wilson, Josh Kronfeld and Jonah Lomu held out.
Afterwards, players like Zinzan Brooke were so angry with Wilson and Kronfeld that they threatened to boot them when they played against them.
Later that night there was a Bledisloe Cup dinner.
All the living Wallaby and All Blacks captains were the guests at the dinner. Most of the old-timers spent time trying to talk the players out of their rebellion. One All Black captain told me the players were as tight “as shit on a blanket.”
The Australian ring-leaders were as determined as the All Black leaders to get the rebellion moving.
John Eales was called “jelly back” because he resisted the breakaway calls. He was not allowed into some of the meetings the players held to discuss tactics.
In the end, the rebellion collapsed when Pienaar and the World Cup winning Springboks were bought off by South African rugby interests. There are suggestions that the price was $1 million a player.
Those of us with long enough memories can’t forget what the leading players of the day tried to do to rugby in 1995. If they had got their way there would not be the world game for them to pontificate about.
The moral authority that they might have gained from their marvellous playing careers has been compromised fatally by their behaviour during the Packer take-over crisis. They were prepared to sell out the game, against its short and long terms interests.
Sean Fitzpatrick, in my opinion, has lost the right to speak for rugby.
His comments (which are unfounded in their own right, anyway) deserve to be booted into the trash can of history, along with his misguided attempt to Packerise world rugby.
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April 8th 2009 @ 10:59am
sheek said | April 8th 2009 @ 10:59am | Report comment
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here!
Calling one group who choose to breakaway from something as “rebels’, suggests that the remaining group, the establishment, is always right. Obviously, this is not so at all!
Conditions in 17th & 18th century Europe were so callously & obscenely skewered & warped between the wealthy ruling classes & poor working classes, that it led to a multitude of world shattering events – religious breakaways & diversification; Caribbean piracy; revolutions in America & France. And that’s just the few things I can think of.
Australia was settled by convicts. How anyone could seriously call the founders of Australia criminals based on the oppressive conditions they existed in, is beyond my logic. In any case, most of the above breakaway groups – or rebels – were justified in their reasons for wanting to break away from a morally decaying society. Or should I say, already decayed.
The RWC saved rugby union, albeit by default. Here’s a brief synopsis of how I saw events unfold.
1. Newscorp attempted to takeover rugby league in Australia through Super League.
2. It intended to make-up shortfalls in playing numbers, by stripping the cream from the Wallabies, All Blacks & Springboks.
3. A similar SL comp in England would also strip the playing cream from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland & France RU.
4. It would have succeeded because rugby union was still amateur, & the money being offered, fabulous!
5. The establishment in Australia – ARL – was backed by the Packer family media empire.
6. As a counter measure, & hedge bet, Packer sanctioned the RWC, in case RL was lost to him.
7. Unintentionally, RWC saved RU, because it allowed players (bought time) to remain in RU, & not defect to RL.
8. It also allowed RU officials the time to come to their senses & end amateurism.
9. Had RU remained amateur, it would have collapsed, splitting either to SL or RWC.
Anyway, that’s a brief synopsis. Rugby league came within a hair’s breadth of destroying rugby union as a major sport, & consigning it to backyard status.
Whether or not Sean Fitzpatrick was an active agent of RWC is immaterial in my view. Sure, they did it for the money, but the establishment needed the ‘wake up’ call all the same. Their traditional intranscience was unforgivable.
Fitzpatrick should be judged solely on the effectiveness & legitimacy of his comments. In this regard I’m struggling for an opinion because I no longer know for sure what rugby union is supposed to be as a game anymore.
April 8th 2009 @ 11:12am
Who Needs Melon said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:12am | Report comment
I agree with Rob McCourt. Play the ball, not the man.
Who CAN “speak for rugby”? If we can get this mythical holier-than-all-of-us person to post on this website and then we can all shut up and bask in the warm glow of their wisdom? Until then I think we all have the right to our own opinions,… however stupid they may be.
April 8th 2009 @ 11:29am
ohtani's jacket said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:29am | Report comment
It’s quite simple, Sheek — Fitzy is full of it.
Under the ELVs, the All Blacks were the most conservative they’ve been since the early 90s, when they relied on Fox to kick for goal. They played “helter skelter” rugby in Sydney and ditched it for a more pragmatic approach. The Grand Slam tour became an excercise in winning WC knock-out games.
But that type of rugby isn’t popular in NZ or Australia. For better or worse, people want to see games like the Chiefs/Blues and the Sydney Test. In that sense Fitzy is completely out of touch with NZ rugby.
And his opinions are most often wrong. Last year he was critical of the NZRU for not allowing overseas players to be eligible for the All Blacks and claimed that we were papering the cracks. The All Blacks were undefeated for the rest of the season and now his new bugaboo is that there’s no structure in the Super 14.
That’s been a NH criticism of the Super 14 since day one. It’s hardly news. Of all the issues in NZ rugby that Fitzy could’ve touched on, he offered up a useless observation. We all know he’s enamoured with NH rugby and I agree that their competitions are better (at least from a competition standpoint), but he’s got not effing clue when it comes to NZ rugby and advocates the things that are hurting it most.
April 8th 2009 @ 11:30am
Midfielder said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:30am | Report comment
Sheek
I agree with your post.
April 8th 2009 @ 11:35am
matta said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:35am | Report comment
NH rugby is more interesting to watch – sorry lads its just is.
April 8th 2009 @ 11:36am
eric said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:36am | Report comment
I agree that Fitzpatrick’s mercenary actions in 1995 were disgraceful, along with Kearns. They should have resigned from their positions as national captains. I am not convinced that Packer ever committed money to the World Rugby Corporation (WRC, not Rugby World Cup RWC). I reckon Geoff Levy & Ross Turnbull were flying by the seat of their pants.
However, Fitzpatrick is entitled to an opinion, but it seems, like so many opinions, to be driven by some hidden agenda. Let just say he was trying to stir up the Kiwi forwards. After all, someone has to win the ball so that hookers can score tries on the wing!
April 8th 2009 @ 11:45am
Whaler said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:45am | Report comment
BANG ! Sheek has correctly wacked spiro over the fence for six ! Spiro do you think the likes of Little, Horan and youngsters of the time would’ve continued to play Rugby getting paid peanuts for much longer and knocked back the massive dollars on offer from Super League or ARL ? You also mention Phil Kearns has forfeited any moral authority to speak on Rugby ……..please ?
April 8th 2009 @ 11:51am
rogerw said | April 8th 2009 @ 11:51am | Report comment
Spiro, interesting article, but I’m afraid you lost me when you started playing the man and not the ball. Always in my opinion a cheap shot.
We all have an opinion on what style of rugby we prefer. The debate on SH over NH will go on forever.
You would have to include Packers involvement in cricket around the same time to give a more balanced view of the move from amateur to professional.
If I recall, and I stand to be corrected, most of the Wallabies came from the ranks of the Professional classes (bankers, stock brokers etc) so “Joe the plumber” had no way of making the team purely on financial reasons. So in a way these moves by all parties ended up benefiting the game. It seems the hate still lingers.
April 8th 2009 @ 12:33pm
sheek said | April 8th 2009 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
Whaler et al,
I happen to have the greatest respect for Spiro’s writings & knowledge. However, I felt the need to explain that ‘rebels’ aren’t always rebels, & that quite often they have legitimacy on their side. For example, the whole basis of amateurism was severely flawed, IMHO.
Like you I was horrified that Horan & Little, etc might be lost to rugby union. Having them play RWC rugby union was much better than watching them play super league rugby league.
April 8th 2009 @ 12:38pm
PastHisBest said | April 8th 2009 @ 12:38pm | Report comment
sheek – “Rugby league came within a hair’s breadth of destroying rugby union as a major sport, & consigning it to backyard status.”
I disagree with this sheek. RU was always going to be too big for RL or one corporation to swallow. Sure, they could sign up 100-150 players but where would that get them? RWC was already a huge success after SA in ’95 and could then start to afford to fund the game globally. Yes WRC forced their hand, but that’s the point – they now had the dosh to do so.
There was only ever going to be one winner in the long run.
OJ (speaking on Fitzy)- “We all know he’s enamoured with NH rugby ”
He’s paid to be enamoured with NH rugby.
matta – “NH rugby is more interesting to watch”
In what way?