Locker Room - the All Blacks' Post Mortem

Jason Rye: Welcome to a very sad and gloomy episode of Locker Room. I'm Jason Rye, and the reason I'm here is to diffuse the tension between Rocky Mak and Tim Howard II. This time, the bloods of these two men are boiling for different reasons. After the shock loss to France in the Rugby World Cup, Tim is blaming anyone in sight, and Rocky is calling for cool head, who should be correct? Let's start the debate. First to 10 points win.

Jason Rye: BLAME GAME! All Blacks lost in the quarter-finals to France, 20-18. And after their earliest exit in the history of Rugby World Cup, who should we blame?

Tim: Graham Henry. As I said about Jake White, the rotation policy does not work. The team has little continuity between games, the fact that he still had the audacity to rotate players during the farcical and barbaric pool games was insane. It actually reminds me of the question I had during the 2006 FIFA World Cup: Should a team start of red hot in pool play, or should they play badly, so they can heat up during knockout phases, when it really counts. Clearly the AB's are too hot, too early, so the blame must go to Graham, then the players.

Rocky: The fact that we call for coach's head every time we lost the big trophy is preposterous. OK, we didn't win the World Cup, and we had to wait again, but the fact that we have had injury concerns in some key positions is a problem. Besides, the record the team has before the knock out stages of a World Cup has been phenomenal. So to sack a coach after that important loss is very upsetting to me. Tactically, I would've loved to see a drop goal sooner than they did, but the coach is not to blame at all. Graham Henry is unorthodox, but his rotation policy is logical, though he did it too many times. The only reason why we call for coach's head for that loss is easy: The fact that we care so much about rugby. You never see USA calling for the coach's head, you never see Japan wanting John Kirwan to leave. In fact, after the draw against Canada, they want to keep him for life!

Jason Rye: Rocky gets the 2 points, and Tim gets 1. But Rocky, who do you think we should blame?