O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills" - Walt Whitman
We were sitting round the office the other day, chewing the fat, as boys do, and the subject of the All Black captaincy came up. As it does. Someone asked me why it mattered so much who the All Black captain was. These guys are all grown-ups and professionals, shouldn't they all know what they're doing? Why do they need someone firing them up when the chips are down?
Now this question was from the league reporter, so obviously it was loaded.
My immediate answer was yes it does matter, of course it does. But I couldn't quite work out why. Or perhaps I couldn't articulate it - which of course is why I'm in the communications industry.
Part of it is that in rugby, the captain does make tactical calls, big decisions, on the field. It's more of the old English public school ideal of a captain - kind of like a cricket captain. There's also a touch of the "Tally-ho! Over the top, chaps!" about it as well. As a rugby player - especially a forward, but increasingly these days as a back - you're asked to do some pretty crazy stuff and if you haven't got a captain you respect you ain't gonna be putting everything into it you should be putting into it.
And that's not even getting into the social implications, the place the All Black captain holds in New Zealand society - just ahead of the Prime Minister, just behind the barman at the local RSA.
Anyway, all of that got us into the whole "Who should it be?" thing. A question that is, quite frankly, as loaded as "Does my ass look fat in this?" There is only one right answer... but who knows what it is?
I'm gonna be up front here, I'm from the old school on this one. You choose your team and then you choose your captain. Not the other way around. You get the best 15 players on the paddock and then you decide which one of them is the leader.
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." - William Shakespeare
Back in 1992, when Laurie Mains became All Black coach, he wanted to make Mike Brewer his captain. Fair enough too. Brewer was a great player, who'd been a great leader for Mains at Otago. But Brewer was injured. So Mains was forced to find a new captain. And who'd he pick? Well, a brash, cocky Auckland hooker, who many thought was too selfish and too young to make it as an All Black captain. But he was a player Mains knew would be in the starting line-up and commanded respect. He was Sean Fitzpatrick and rest is history.
So, your captain has to make your starting XV.
The only current options in the backs are Tana Umaga and Justin Marshall. But a) backs don't have a great record as All Black captain - think Marshall's last crack at it, think Stu Wilson in the UK - and b) if you name a back as skipper, you've then got to pick a forward leader anyway, so what's the point?
So it's likely to be a forward and it's gotta be someone who commands their spot of right. Who? Well, no one in the tight-five stands out.
So... Richie McCaw?
He's an obvious favourite, but from where I sit, he's got enough on his plate. If you have McCaw as captain he has to play the full 80. And there's no doubt seven is the toughest most demanding position in modern game. If you're going to sub someone for fatigue, it's your seven. If someone's going to get hurt, it's your seven. And these days seven's such a "head down, bum up" position, it's hard to for him to see what's going on around him, to get a good grasp of the whole game. There's no doubt he's best player in country, but...
The other argument en vogue is to play McCaw and Marty Holah together, either left and right, or move McCaw to the blindside. Much like Australia to do with Waugh and Smith. Which would be nice, except, you then lose a lineout jumper.
And let's face it, it's not like our locks are good enough for us to do that. So to make up for that, you'd need a tall, jumping, Murray Mexted-style No.8 for the back of the lineout and guess what? There aren't any. Mind you, since Mex will be at all the games anyway, we could always throw a jersey on him.
So you've got to play McCaw at seven, and the way things have looked so far this year, Jerry Collins stays eight - So'oialo's too raw, so is Lauaki and Rush didn't do enough this year to force his case - which leaves you with a lineout jumping No.6. And who could that be?
Rueben Thorne or Jono Gibbes.
So, it all comes down to this...
Is Jono a better player than Reuben? I don't care about the whole Captain Visible v Captain Invisible thing. Who is the better player? One-on-one, man-on-man, who is better?
Again one of those questions. Kind of like "Should I wear the diamond earrings or the sapphire earrings? The diamonds are classy but the sapphires bring out my eyes."
"I don't know! They both look nice... I'm a guy I can't make earrings decsions!"
I also can't make captaincy decisions. And to be honest, I'm quite glad I'm not making this one, but if I were a betting man, I would say they will stick with Reuben. As much as I admire Gibbes as a player, I don't think he's comprehensively outplayed Thorne this season.
I don't think he's done enough to force his way in and force Thorne out. Thorne on the other hand, is lifting his game at the right time of the season, and the players love him - they really do, there's something about him they respond to.
Mind you, I could be completely wrong - it happens every now and then (Ed: Quite often actually). They might pick Aaron Mauger. Who knows?
