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Around 2pm in New Zealand on Monday, the news stations carried a story that the young All Black Zac Guildford was having a press conference, along with the All Blacks manager Darren Shand, to explain rumours about a heavy drinking session.
My immediate thought was that the All Blacks selectors had found a way to get the big bruising winger Hosea Gear back into the Rugby World Cup tournament squad, redressing a selection blunder.
If readers find this too cynical, journalists who are as long in the tooth as me have seen things like this happen over the years.
We start off with starry-eyed admiration of officials, in all areas of life, and after experiencing the wiles and ploys of officialdom we become inveterate conspiracy theorists.
As it happened, the All Blacks management had no intention of dropping Guildford (although another binge during the World Cup would force them to). Shand pointed out that the media conference was intended to clear the air of rumours.
The facts were that Guilford had broken the team protocols twice, one after the All Blacks victory against the Wallabies at Auckland and the other after the All Blacks defeat by the Wallabies at Brisbane.
Moreover, in the weeks before these two incidents, Guildford had given an undertaking to the coaches about curtailing his drinking bouts while the All Blacks were in South Africa.
Fortunately for him, the selectors accepted his apologies and his commitment to virtually go on the wagon. He was selected for the 2011 World Cup squad. Then he played a shocker at Brisbane, dropping high balls and missing tackles. So he drowned his sorrows in beer.
There is no doubt that if the Rugby World Cup squad had been selected after this incident, he would undoubtedly not have been selected.
There is a similarity between the case of Guildford and that of the youngest Wallaby James O’Connor. O’Connor’s unfortunate drinking binge occured the night before the Wallaby squad and captain was named.
It is now an infamous part of Wallaby folklore that the team emerged player after player from a huge Qantas plane to group together for the official team photograph, but with no James O’Connor.
O’Connor was dropped for two matches and then brought back for the crucial World Cup match against Ireland.
Guildford is yet to play in the World Cup tournament. The All Blacks selectors have been developing Sonny Bill Williams as a centre/winger substitute, with Isaia Toeva, Corey Jane and Richard Kahui staking their claims for starting roles as wingers.
New Zealand and Australian societies have a problem with binge drinking. It is not accidental that so many talented young sportsmen like Guildford and O’Connor seem to have a problem in this area.
This raises very serious questions for the management of teams like the Wallabies and All Blacks on how to manage problem players and how to help them.
I am writing this in the self-knowledge that as a young man, many decades ago, it was not entirely unusual for me to over-indulge in beer on a Friday night, even though I might be playing an important cricket match the next day.
Having said this, I believe that the management of the Wallabies and the All Blacks have handled these two cases with proper care for the welfare of the players and the integrity of the team.
Neither case, on the facts that we have, merited dismissal from the team. Having said this, if either player binges again during the World Cup then they will have to be put out to pasture.
There are two reasons for this. The first relates to the player himself. Both of these players (and others like them) need tough love.
Help and understanding to beat the problem but then punishment if the player reneges on his commitment. That’s the proper recipe to affect a needed change of behaviour.
The second reason follows on from this need for tough love. Both these players offended the other members of their squad. Senior members of the All Blacks, for instance, made it clear to their management that they believed Guildford was abusing the privileges that come from being an All Black.
My information is that senior Wallabies had the same attitude to O’Connor’s behaviour.
The New Zealand Herald ran a terrific Private Eye-type cartoon on Tuesday. Titled ‘Zac Guildford Arrives At Training’, it showed a photo of Guildford with his eyes closed and his arms out in a help-me pose, being held in a headlock by one of the All Black forwards.
Guildford is saying in his speech balloon, “I’ll take youse all on!” The enforcer says, “I think you’ve had enough mate.”
Quite so.
The fact that Guildford and O’Connor are junior members of their teams (although O’Connor is an important part of the Wallabies starting side) distinguishes their cases from that of Mike Tindall.
Tindall was given the honour of captaining England in their opening match of the Rugby World Cup against Argentina. He is a senior member of the side. He is the one who should be taking aside any youngster in the England squad who misbehaves and giving him a stern talking to.
For me, this dereliction of his responsibilities as a senior member of the side represents Tindall’s main offence.
He was setting a bad example for the younger players in the side. The dwarf stuff was probably a stunt by the managers of the pub. And let’s face it, while I am hoping my lovely wife is not reading this, it is the fantasy of any red-blooded man to drop his head into the heaving bosom of a pouting blond-haired woman.
The best way to deal with the naughty boys of World Cup rugby, therefore, is to take the baseball option: three strikes and you’re out.
