Jones: The day I met a real Dunedin dame

OPINION: Graham Henry is one of the best coaches of his era but cannot sit in the pantheon until he wins the World Cup.

And only if he does win it and then defends it successfully four years later, would he be up there with New Zealand's greatest coach, who I met last week.

This is a funny old place. I told my adoring readers up in the United Kingdom earlier this week of a kindly woman I met at the media centre in Otago Stadium last Saturday. She was charming, a little pointed, was ultra-helpful and yet clearly didn't suffer fools, even UK media fools, not that there are any.

She was the anchor woman at the main desk in the media centre, was wearing one of those fetching mauve (or whatever colour they are)  tracksuit tops proclaiming her a RWC 20011 volunteer.

The volunteers are marvellous. They seem to have allocated each one a grin as broad as the gaps in the All Blacks' trophy cabinet. Sometime in the past, they filled in a form to do their bit, to be the outer face of the World Cup, to serve the nation, to show it in a  good light, to smooth the running. Like no other people, they set the tone for this event - and my kindly lady set the best tone. When I was hanging  around her table, starving, she told me to go away and she'd come and get me first when the food was served.

It was surprising and rather welcome  to see her again in the middle of last week ... she was serving in the chemist shop above the Octagon ... we greeted each other like old friends, she complimented me on a typically barnstorming  television appearance when I addressed the New Zealand nation, as the nation  clearly needs. I asked her if she loved rugby. She did, but netball was more her game. I told her that Rosie, my daughter, was  a netballer, and she said she'd done a bit in New Zealand netball. The lapel badge in her work uniform said "Lois Muir".

As I told readers up in the old country, the rest was history.  Looked her up on the internet, and the pages came tumbling out. Dame Lois Muir, the lady who'd offered to tell me when the grub was ready - winner of the Netball World Cup as a player, coach of the Silver Ferns for ever, and coach when the team won two world titles,  two more than Mr Henry. She told me that once, she'd toured Wales. And lain flat out on her back at the National Rugby Stadium in honour of the place.

There were so many tributes to her on the site, so many testimonies that she was one of the greatest sporting people New Zealand has ever produced - putting the two great Colins, Meads and Slade, in the shade. More than any other person, she had rendered obsolete that old cutting quiz question posed by  some naughty people (to wit: "What else is New Zealand good at other than rugby? - some people are so unkind).

Dame Lois is a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and member of the New Zealand sports Hall of Fame. Presumably, she never earned a penny from the years and years of doing sporting good.

On Thursday, as I was leaving the shop armed with  a new style lotion she recommended to treat muscle soreness  after endless hours hunched over a computer, she apologised that she could not be there for the captain's run at the stadium that day, but said that she would be there on Saturday.

To volunteer to show New Zealand in a  good light comes naturally to her because it's probably what she's always done - she remains two titles to nil ahead of the rugby lot.

As Saturday approached and the England-Romania game loomed, I was worried. Would I feel able  to bring myself to ask her for a copy of the team-sheet?

She wouldn't think for a second that it was below her to perform such a task ... I'd just be certain that it is above me.

Stephen Jones  is chief rugby writer for the Sunday Times in London.

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