Dingo a wolf in sheep's clothing

BY ERIC YOUNG

OPINION: Our trade deficit is at its narrowest in more than five years. What this means, I think, is that we are importing nothing and exporting plenty, though as always I may be taking the simple view.

But it got me thinking. Is there such a thing as a sport deficit? And how big might ours be?

You could argue that in sports such as basketball, we run a reasonably huge deficit, but it is healthy. Plenty of imports, not much trade going the other way, though. Yes we get the better of the deal.

Same for football.

Cricket? Tricky. The more I look at it, the more we seem to be part of some mad plan to move everything to India.

But in rugby, the deficit is enormous. New Zealand is, and there seems no other way of putting this, colonising the planet.

Our imports are almost nil and our exports? Our exports range from the humble club player looking for something to do on his OE ... to the man now in charge of the Wallabies.

It is more than 18 months since Australian Rugby Union CEO John O'Neill revealed himself to be the evil genius we always suspected he was, by stealing the coach we couldn't keep.

And it went a little like this. One night Robbie Deans went to sleep a Crusader. The next morning he woke up a Wallaby.

And you thought YOU were surprised. Be honest. This wasn't Warren Gatland coaching Ireland or John Kirwan shouting at Japan.

This was the greatest coach in Super rugby history taking over our fiercest rivals. Attempting to turn them into the best rugby team in the world. And looking pretty damned happy about it.

Until that moment it had always been easy to dislike Australians. Their rugby coaches anyway. I mean, seriously, how hard was it to love Eddie Jones? Or Alan Jones for that matter. You get my point.

You will also remember former Wallabies, some of them anyway, revolted.

Peter FitzSimons: "If rugby was purely a business and rugby followers were customers and clients, no doubt about it, you'd look around the world and you would say 'that's the man. That's the one that has got the skills that we need'. I'm old fashioned enough to think that rugby is not purely a business and I know that the Australian rugby community, a large chunk of the Australian rugby community feels exactly the same."

Nick Farr-Jones: "I would find it strange to get the final instructions, to get the sort of final passionate speech from a non-Australian person, to go out there and secure the Bledisloe Cup."

Of course you would. But then you'd have another drink from that bloody Bledisloe and forget all about the funny accent of the man who motivated you to win it.

Farr-Jones and Fitz-Simons have, naturally, publicly, and repeatedly got back on side, but what they were doing back then was what we were doing back then. Speaking with their hearts.

Which is why, and you know this, whenever television cameras turn towards the Wallabies coaches' box, it still looks ... odd.

O'Neill's reputation as a man who gets things done was never in better evidence than when he signed Deans, because at the stroke of a pen he managed three things. He took away our anti-Wallaby ammunition, he disrupted the natural coaching succession plan here and, in certain parts of the South Island, elevated Australia to what American trade negotiators would call "most-favoured nation" status.

New Zealand rugby's trade deficit had never been as imbalanced. It's one thing to lose senior or fading rugby players to distant contracts. Another thing entirely to have what many consider the most astute mind in the game suddenly plotting your downfall.

Because that's what we're afraid of, isn't it?

Forget last night. In the grand scheme of things, the Bledisloe Cup and the Tri Nations are, as FitzSimons insists upon reminding us; "those things you win when you peak between Rugby World Cups".

And though Graham Henry is still leading their personal battle, I get an awful feeling deep down inside that all Deans is doing is laying traps not designed to go off until 2011.

- © Fairfax NZ News