The four World Cup coaches walk into a bar and bump into Spiro

Steve Hansen and Heyneke Meyer were stumbling through Piccadilly Circus, arm in arm, singing the Namibian national anthem, when they tripped over a big prostrate body.

It was Michael Cheika, in a black suit, with a tattered black tie, and one black shoe.

“What a nutter!” Meyer exclaimed, his gold-tipped blazer somehow impervious to the pouring rain in the dark alley. Hansen handed Meyer his All Black hoodie.

“Hold this, H-man. Let me show you how to counter-ruck, Canterbury style.”

Hansen rolled up his sleeves, revealing sinewy forearms festooned with tattoos of Israeli soldier girls, Chinese platitudes, and Sonny Bill Williams’ abdominals.

He clean-jerked Cheika above his shoulders in one smooth move; and then lifted him high.

“This is how you do lineouts, Checkmate!”

Meyer took out the bota bag of rum he’d been sharing with Hansen; fishing it from his gold-trimmed pockets.

“Shaggy, baby! Hold him up! I’m Bismarck. Make the call!”

Meyer held the rum-filled bota bag in two hands, his veins almost rupturing, and waited for Hansen’s lineout call. Cheika was regaining consciousness, and wondered why a Kiwi hand was on his inner thigh, and another Kiwi hand was in his armpit, and why he was aloft, and how much London rain he could drink to drown his sorrows and dilute the pain of seeing Nigel Owen’s face forever in his bad Waratah dreams. His remaining shoe fell off.

Hansen’s face was reddening.

“Heineken! We don’t use verbal calls! We use sign language.”

Meyer was stunned. He put his arms down. He drank long and slow from the bota bag.

“Put Cheika down. I don’t want to play lineout any more. Four years of study, and the greatest lineout genius who ever lived, my Victor, my trump, my ace, and you used sign language.”

First looking around to see if there were any cameras, Hansen tripped Cheika, and hip-checked him, opening up 20 stitches in his forehead, smiling to Meyer: “This is what I call my McCaw move.”

Cheika woke up in a fury.

“You broke my glasses! I designed them myself!”

But Meyer and Hansen joined arms and counter-rucked the Aussie coach; only to find that Cheika was stronger than both of them combined. They were mystified, but then realised Agustin Creevy had snuck up silently, and was buttressing the drunken, half-dressed Waratah mastermind.

After a few minutes of tussling, the four men wearily sat on the wet ground, started to smile, and then laugh.

“To the pub!” bellowed Shag.

“Salud!” echoed Creevy.

Meyer and Cheika were cool to each other, and kept a distance, but chimed in their agreement.

The pub they chose was called ‘The Three Legged Mare’.

“Hey, Shag!” slurred Cheika. “Why does New Zealand have some of the fastest race horses in the world?”

“Dunno Michelob. Why?”

“Because the horses have seen what the Kiwis do to their sheep!”

Creevy offloaded a deep Spanish laugh: “Ja ja ja ja ja ja!”

Meyer fended Cheika in the throat: “Apologise to my best friend.”

Just before a second fight broke out in The Three Legged Mare, a tidily-dressed and impeccably mustachioed man stepped in, and in a soothing baritone implored:

“Take it easy, young men. I am Spiro. Let us sit, and sip, and fax, and wax, and summarise this latest World Cup, good but not the greatest, along the lines of my preconceived narratives and notions.”

And the four burly men nodded meekly and slid into the smooth oak pews just under the statue of the third leg of the mare.

“You a journalist, right?” Meyer interrogated.

“Perhaps. But I like to think of myself as a thinker, a muse, a wit, even a gadfly.”

“Here’s some wit,” interjected Cheika. “How do Kiwis find sheep in long grass? Delightful!”

“Ja ja ja ja ja!” The rhythmic Plateno laugh formed the soundtrack of the pub.

Spiro sighed. His chosen profession surrounded him with so many nitwits.

“I’d like to discuss the semifinals and the grand final. I suppose the obvious lesson we all gained was four-fold. One, Jakeball is Loserball and the Boks kicked themselves out of the grand final. Two, Craig Joubert is the best ref in the world. Three, Argentina is brave, and deserved more. Four, the team that scored the most, won.”

Hansen cleared his throat, preparing to demur and speak about his stingy defence, turnover methodology, lineout mastery, and drop goals, but Meyer slammed both of his fists and his head into the pub table.

“Spiro, you are a nutter! The All Blacks beat us with Jakeball. 47 kicks! That’s Shagball! 47 kicks! We tried to kick as much as them, but our feet started to hurt.”

Cheika rebutted Meyer: “Look, mate. We were in the grand final. Spiro’s right. We won the Pool of Death. We beat Wales. We beat Scotland. We beat Argentina.”

Hansen was sitting on a sheepskin seat cover that he always carries with him to pubs. “Mikey. The Boks beat Wales, and actually scored a try. The Boks pummeled Scotland and didn’t need a South African referee to save them. Meyer’s old boys hammered the Pumas, and I think they were yawning, and just trying to get Habana the Lomu record. If they’d been in the Pool of Death, it’d have been the Boks in the grand final, and I would have actually been worried.”

Cheika stood up and began to chant: “Boks scored no tries. Boks scored no tries. Boks scored no tries. Japan. Japan. Japan. We’re number two. We’re number two.”

Spiro raised his hand, silencing Cheika. “That’s true, so very true, truer than true, and poetically true, but let’s focus on the important thing. The right kind of rugby won. Evil was vanquished. Australia was the right kind of loser, and Argentina deserved more.”

Creevy burped, and offloaded a beer to Meyer. “No si. Rugby is rugby. Win is win. Lose is lose. Try and try again. Everyone remembers their first kiss, but not their thousandth. We must all try to find the newness in the old.”

Meyer hugged Creevy awkwardly, because his stiff green and gold blazer formed a wall and a partition and a barrier. The South African was tearful.

“I found my first love and they came back to me, to lead this brilliant campaign. We came so close. It was brilliant. Victor and Fourie and the guys. I wanted them to come out on top. But Shag was brilliant.”

“He is a genius and Fourie is a genius and Victor is a genius and the All Blacks are an amazing team, the best in history, and we are only two points less good as the best team in history, so we are better than any other team not coached by my good friend, and I love my country and we are amazing but we mustn’t be so critical of ourselves.”

The five men raised their glasses and drank solemnly to that soliloquy.

Spiro put on his glasses, then removed them, and then put them on again. Hansen noticed that Spiro’s glasses had only one lens.

“But gentlemen, back to these obvious truths. The way to beat New Zealand is how Australia tried to do it. Fleet loose forwards. Forget the lineout. Spread the pitch. Build a lot of space for everyone. Dare the Kiwis to run all day in space. Australia has the Outback. We know space and we can run for days. Run Beauden Barrett off his feet. Fool Sonny Bill into thinking he has time and space to set Nonu free. And give Read shorter opponents to make him nervous about his knees. And limit the number of kicks out of hand to 23. No?”

His four drinking mates weren’t sure whether to agree to the “no” or say “no” to the “no.” It was late, and they’d been drinking a long time.

“I’ll interpret that silence as assent. So, the final rankings of rugby goodness are New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Craig Joubert, and then South Africa, who really were never in that semifinal. I mean, the All Blacks brought on their subs and their fitness was the difference in that final 20 minutes.”

Hansen: “Spiro. We didn’t score at all in the final 20. We didn’t look like scoring at all, really. We won with a drop goal and a TMO penalty reversal for Matfield doing the first mongrel thing I’ve ever seen him do.”

Spiro: “Exactly. Jakeball was defeated. Your 47 kicks were reluctantly done to defeat Jakeball. Australia gave you the best contest. And Argentina was unlucky.”

A silence descended on the group. They focused on their beer.

Hansen drank a Chimay, and as he drank, his tongue precisely discerned the brewing process, the ingredients, and the colour of the eyes of the brewmaster.

Creevy drank a Corona, with a lime, and dreamed of a beach, and a girl, and a pedicure.

Cheika drank Dos Equis, and thought: “What could I say or do next that would make me look interesting and smart and dangerous?”

Meyer sipped a Guinness, and wished it were coffee, because he was feeling too calm. He always felt calm after he cried.

Spiro had a flight of beers in small shot glasses. James Squire, XXXX Gold, Crown Lager, James Boag, and Cascade. As he drank one, he threw the glass over his shoulder and stated in a clipped, precise manner: “ya mas, Craig Joubert, may we avenge thee.”