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Henry rakes up World Cup woeFormer All Blacks boss Graham Henry has revealed he urged the New Zealand Rugby Union to push for an official investigation into his side's exit from the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
New Zealand were sent crashing out of the tournament at the hands of France who claimed a dramatic 20-18 victory in their quarter-final clash at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Henry has pointed the finger at referee Wayne Barnes and the fact that his side were not awarded a single penalty in the last 60 minutes of a game that also included a questionable pass in the build-up to a try for France's Yannick Jauzion.Henry, who went on to steer New Zealand to the 2011 World Cup crown, makes the accusation in his forthcoming biography, entitled Final Word, that details his own analysis of the game and
questions the performances of Barnes and his touch judges, Jonathan Kaplan from South Africa and Tony Spreadbury from England. His own statistics suggest the All Blacks dominated the contest with 73% of territory and won 166 rucks to France's 42 while making only 73 tackles compared with their opponents' 331.
In the book, penned by journalist Bob Howitt, Henry reportedly
reveals that he was so shocked by what he saw that he became nauseous before actually throwing up and in his final analysis he suggested that Barnes missed a total of 40 penalty infringements by France. Stuff.co.nz reports that Henry momentarily let the thought of match-fixing enter his mind before dismissing it but raised his concerns at the standard of officiating with the NZRU.The book states: "He told them he believed, given the graphic video evidence available, that the NZRU should pressure the International Rugby Board to institute an inquiry. He also
emphasised that it was incomprehensible that the IRB did not have strategies in place to investigate bizarre matches. And when it came to bizarre, this World Cup quarter-final was an absolute doozy."As far as Graham was concerned, the major reason the All Blacks had lost was not because of conditioning or rotation policies or decisions by his captain, but purely and
simply because the officials had refereed only one team, to a degree unprecedented in the history of the sport."He knew if a comparable situation had occurred in other sports, it would be investigated.
But there existed a blissful purity about rugby, or at least that's how everyone wanted to perceive it. It wasn't politically correct to even suggest the match officials might have favoured one team."In an interview on the subject with Radio Sport, Henry added: "They told me to pull my head in and relax and get on with it, and quite frankly that advice was the correct advice, because if I'd actually kept going down that path I would never have coached the All Blacks again."
On that night in Cardiff, he added: "I've been involved in 140 test matches and 20 years of coaching at provincial level or the level above and 12 years of coaching international rugby and I've never been involved in a game that was like this game."
Howitt has since revealed that he, Henry and the publishers are prepared for any legal action resulting from the book, as it "has been scrutinised by lawyers".
"I can tell you that there were probably 300 or 400 words that were taken out, which I'd love to tell you now what they were because they would be even more damning," he said.
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
და რაღა თქვან სამოამ, უელსმა და აფრიკამ 2011 წლის გამო? This post has been edited by Lukas & Nikos Mama on 29 Jul 2012, 14:41
NEW ZEALAND "ALL BLACKS" part 2, მსოფლიო თასის მოქმედი გამარჯვებული
