News

Henry squares off with Wellington

August 12 2009

Graham Henry will not have things all his own way when it comes to his All Blacks getting game-time while off international duty.

That is the message sent out by Wellington coach Jamie Joseph, who has refused to select Piri Weepu, Cory Jane and Neemia Tialala for his Air New Zealand Cup side to play table-topping Bay of Plenty saying that selecting them for the occasional match would be disruptive.

Behind the scenes, Henry is furiously trying to shoehorn the players into the side for some game time at a high level, rather than for Wellington's B side against Horowhenua-Kapiti. He would not go into details, but his displeasure was obvious.

"We're trying to deal with that through the appropriate channels, and the appropriate channels are probably not through the media," Henry said after an All Blacks training run in west Auckland on Wednesday.

"I guess you've got to watch this space... we're working through the appropriate channels, and hopefully we'll get a positive result."

The move by Joseph has also not sat that well with the omitted players, who - as indicated by Jane in a radio interview - may seek to get loan moves to other provinces just to get some game time.

"I'd prefer to stay in Wellington but if I didn't have the Wellington Bs or anything to play for, then we all talked about being loaned to somewhere to get some game time," Jane told Radio Sport.

"We've got a game this week for the Bs, but the boys are still thinking about that (being loaned)."

But Joseph has the backing of the Wellington board, with Chief Executive Greg Peters caught between a laudable support of his coach and the desires and requirements of the players and the national team.

"We fully support what Jamie's trying to do here," Peters said.

"We're trying to prepare a team to retain the Ranfurly Shield in Wellington, which is a very important goal for us this year.

"They (The NZRU) might be disappointed by it and they'd like to see these guys on the track but they fully understand the rationale behind the decision.

"We've facilitated some rugby for these guys."