JUNE/JULY 2015 // NZ RUGBY WORLD //
93
FAT CAMP
Piri Weepu returned to
the Blues badly out of
shape and it damaged
the Blues in 2012.
MATT WILLIAMS
When coaching veteran Ian McGeechan stood down after the 2003 World Cup,
Scotland decided they needed a touch of the exotic to replace him.
They appointed the relatively unknown figure of Matt Williams – an Australian who had held
minor roles with New South Wales before enjoying moderate success with Leinster.
Williams obviously interviewed well. He was smooth, articulate and had all the jargon that
those who inhabit board rooms love.
But the players felt he was openly critical of their performances – continually put them down
for lacking skills.
Williams also talked about instigating a policy where to play for the national team, it would
become compulsory to be based in Scotland. Yet for all he talked it, key players were allowed to
leave all the time.
18 months into his reign, Scotland had won only three of 17 tests which led to a major review.
The players took their chance to voice their concerns and Williams was sacked.
Even then, he refused to take any responsibility for having had a hand in his own fate.
“The thing I didn’t know was that Berti Vogts was a German coaching the football team, and I
didn’t realise the massive antipathy towards him,” Williams said.
“It was wrongly placed because it was based on racial grounds and unfortunately when he
left, that got placed on me. It didn’t really matter if I was any good or not – I wasn’t a Scot. So the
whole racial thing was pretty hard to accept.”
07
08
TAKING THE
BISCUIT
The RFU were riled
by Venter’s decision
to eat a biscuit.
PAT LAM
Pat Lam is a
thoroughly decent
bloke. There was
a period when he was establishing
himself as a decent coach, too.
Having taken charge of the Blues at
short notice in 2009, he slowly turned
them around – helping them reach the
semifinals in 2011.
2012 was going to be the big year
for him and the Blues. Piri Weepu
and Ma’a Nonu had both arrived in
Auckland and there was positive talk
from the senior players that it was
time to win another title.
But their season was in chaos
before it got going. Weepu returned
to training approximately 10kg
overweight. First-five Gareth
Anscombe had been signed on a
three-year deal and touted as the
future of the franchise. Yet come the
first game, Anscombe was nowhere
to be seen and it was the journeyman
second-five, Michael Hobbs who was
wearing No 10.
It was staggering how the Blues
went from semifinalists in 2011 to rock
bottom in 2012 – and that was with
having improved their squad.
The defensive structures collapsed,
their attack game disappeared and
the team imploded. Poor old Lam had
no idea what to say to the media each
week as his team failed and failed to
follow a gameplan.
He was left babbling nonsense
about great improvements having
been made behind the scenes and the
franchise being on the right track but
for the teensy, weensy issue of them
being absolutely terrible on the field.
The Blues board were one
of the first to lose faith in their
coach – announcing nine weeks
into the season they would not be
reappointing Lam in 2013.
09
BRENDAN VENTER
Life was never dull when
Brendan Venter was with Saracens. The
former Springbok is bright and engaging –
and has the unusual distinction of being a
qualified doctor.
His intelligence, though, often came
across as sarcasm and harbouring disdain
for the more restrictive and archaic policies
that were alive in the English game.
Venter was exceptional at airing his views
and regularly fined. He was clearly persona
non gratis with the RFU – which was made
clear when chairman of the latter, Martyn
Thomas, said after a May judicial hearing:
“The panel witnessed a certain disdain from
Venter when he appeared at the hearing (for
example by coming back to hear his sanction
eating a biscuit and throwing sweet papers
across the table).
“You don’t go into the Old Bailey eating a
biscuit. You show a degree of respect to the
process in the court.”
Venter explained that he had taken a
biscuit on his way out of the room in which
the panel were deliberating their verdict. He
was eating it when they called him back in.
It was a lame excuse, but better than the
nothing he oered after giving the most
bizarre interview later that year. In November
he was fined 10,000 Euros for again being
critical of a referee in a European match. So
the following week, after his side lost again,
he decided to give a series of bizarre non-
answers to the ocial broadcasters.
He came across as either drunk or in need
of help.
