Norm, our oldest crony and a self-confessed know-all, proclaimed that coaches are unimportant.
Norm can be pretty persuasive and almost had us believing he’d seen The Invincibles playing. He had support from Dan who played plenty of rugby in his younger days.
"You’re right, Norm. We just sorted it out among ourselves. If a bloke wasn’t pulling his weight, we thumped him. Anyone who missed a practice had to shout the team. If you chose a match day for your wedding, you soon got the message. Many’s the couple who had their big day shunted around to meet the rugby schedule. When we were doing well — and that was most years in the 1950s — there wasn’t a wedding around here between April and September. Had a few broken engagements, of course, but they seemed to fire up the ex-fiances and they played out of their skins. Won the cup four years in a row and no coach to complicate things."
Jock comes from a later era and remembered the legendary Gimmerburn coach of the 1960s, Gerald Clarke, a farmer whose first love was rugby.
"He was one of the first who could poach and coach. He pinched Ian ‘Spooky’ Smith from Pirates in Dunedin and gave him a job on the farm. ‘Spooky’ became our only All Black."
Then came a flood of coach stories. Coaches who banned alcohol for two days before a game and those who believed the boys played best when well-oiled.
The coach who banned sexual activity the night before a game and faced a team rebellion which saw the ban lifted and the playing record improve.
Of course, there were coaches whose vocabulary was limited to "a game of two halves," "when you’re down the only way is up" and "I’m proud of the boys’’.
We were just about to wrap up when Norm turned to me and said: "What about you, Jim. You usually have a lot of rubbish to spout about. What about rugby?"
"Well, I never had much of a rugby career, but I remember one coach who probably saved me from serious damage. It was in the third grade and that’s where blokes just out of secondary school played. Some of them would have given Jonah Lomu a run for his money. After about four games the coach called me aside and said, ‘Jim, I won’t be needing you for the rest of the season’."
Noting my obvious disappointment, he explained: "I’ll tell you why. You’re not big enough for this level of rugby and you’re too old to go back to the midgets. But the main reasons are that you’re too slow, have no ball skills and, to put it in a nutshell, you’re no bloody use on the paddock!"
There was a silence among my audience for a few moments, then Jock muttered, "Gee, imagine an All Blacks coach saying that to one of his players."
"No problem these days," Geoff retorted. "He’s got a couple of psychologists on his staff to sort out that stuff."
Through all this intellectual debate, young Paul had uttered not a word. He’s something of a nerd and gets pretty excited by steam trains and computer games but he’s a decent sort and we asked what he thought about rugby coaches.
"OK, I’ll tell you. The finest coach the All Blacks ever had was in France for the World Cup in 2024."
Norm exploded, "Good grief! You know nothing about rugby. That’s when they lost the final to South Africa who kicked their way to a win while the All Black captain got a red card. A good coach would have sorted things out before they took the field. Anyway, Foster’s record wasn’t that great’’.
"I don’t know anything about Foster", admitted Paul, "but the coach I’m backing is the 46-seater Magelys bus which carried the All Blacks around France. Great paint job. Leather seats, Wi-Fi, USB sockets, audiovisual equipment for each player and two gaming machines. The best All Blacks coach ever!"
There wasn’t much we could say to that, but Norm, who’s been deeply affected by the recent form of the All Blacks, offered, "Well, whoever the new All Blacks coach is, he’ll need to able to handle a hospital pass’’.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
