SIR CLIVE WOODWARD may have detractors who question his motives, manner and methods, but Graham Henry is not one of them. The New Zealand coach said yesterday that coaches had to be touched by a certain kind of “madness” to do the job they did in the environment in which they operated and that Woodward was no exception.
“I would say he was mad, like the other coach coaching the All Blacks,” Henry said. “You have to be mad to do this job, wouldn’t you? I think you need a bit of a passion and to be slightly off-centre to put up with what you put up with. We are both passionate about it and we are pretty similar.”
Henry made his comments here at the announcement of the All Blacks team to play the first international of the series at Jade Stadium. He admitted it was the most difficult selection of his reign. Justin Marshall, the veteran scrum half who moves to England to join Leeds Tykes after the series, has won his personal duel with Byron Kelleher. Marshall’s experience and the fact that he will be playing in his home city were the decisive factors, according to Henry.
Leon MacDonald replaces Mils Muliaina at full back. MacDonald, who missed a year with serious concussion, enjoyed an outstanding Super 12 but Muliaina can count himself especially unfortunate. “He was the stand-out player in our end-of-year tour,” Henry said. Muliaina’s first memory of the Lions was as a 12-year-old schoolboy watching the defeat of Southland in 1993 and managing to get Gavin Hastings’s autograph. He has to be content with a place among the replacements.
MacDonald and Carl Hayman, who were both members of the Maori team that beat the Lions ten days ago, come into the side that swamped Fiji. Marshall, Keven Mealamu and Chris Jack were replacements for that match and now find themselves promoted.
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Whoever Woodward picks, and he reveals his hand today, with the emphasis likely to be on the tried and trusted, Henry is aware of the danger of his own side potentially being “undercooked” at this early stage in their season. “It is possible, yes,” he said. “The Lions will switch on for the big ones. I think they will throw the kitchen sink at us on Saturday night.”
HOW THEY LINE UP
NEW ZEALAND: L MacDonald; D Howlett, T Umaga (captain), A Mauger, S Sivivatu; D Carter, J Marshall; A Woodcock, K Mealamu, C Hayman, C Jack, A Williams, J Collins, R McCaw, R So’oialo. Replacements: D Witcombe, G Somerville, J Gibbes, S Lauaki, B Kelleher, M Muliaina, R Gear.