Henry Graham - Graham Henry: final word

F rom World Cup-losing coach to knighted winner, from disaster to triumph over the years, the Graham Henry story is a remarkable one of 37 years of coaching and dedication to rugby in New Zealand and the UK.

As one of his third- and sixth-form teachers at Christchurch Boys High School, I know that he was no star scholar, yet his persistence gained him University Entrance.

He played First XV rugby and First XI cricket a gritty young sportsman, but not a natural one. Determination has always been part of his character and even then he had that dour southern desire to succeed.

It was during my years as his head master at Auckland Grammar School that I observed Grahams outstanding work ethic: he ran the school hostel, coached the First XV, carried a full teaching load and studied and earned a degree. Hed discovered the value of hard work and understood that, for him in particular, nothing would be achieved without total effort.

His eventual destiny was still many years ahead and, in fact, unthought of. By 1982, he was deputy head master of Kelston Boys High School and by 1986 the schools head master, a remarkably quick climb up the educational ladder.

His rugby coaching, too, had continued to prosper. He was learning his rugby trade at secondary school and senior club level and constantly developing outstanding teams. His rugby ambitions were blossoming. He won the Auckland coaching position in 1992 on merit and thus began a tumultuous rugby coaching career of 21 years at senior levels of the game.

For the next four years, until 1995, he successfully combined leading a major boys school along with coaching the Auckland rugby team. These years honed his coaching skills and slowly improved his man-management ability.

Graham was careful in his approach to players, often distant, and he was sometimes seen as being unapproachable; he was certainly careful and wary of a growing, intrusive media. But he worked tirelessly at developing his coaching skills.

He was growing as a coach and developing a deep knowledge of how the game should and could be played. His players were won over by this passion for a quality winning performance.

He won four NPC champion ships, but the pressure of being both a school head master and a dedicated coach was all-consuming and logically one should have taken a back seat in time and commitment an impossible dilemma for Graham Henry the workaholic!

Fate then intervened with the game becoming professional in late 1995. By the end of 1996 he had become a professional rugby coach. Call it luck or destiny, the opportunity came at exactly the right time in his life and career.

Graham had developed a number of positive qualities: he was a hard worker and put in the hours, he had a passion for the game, and he was ambitious and determined to succeed. He was also a risk taker, a gambler. But he could never have imagined the challenges he would face over the next 16 years.

Grahams Auckland Blues won the 1996 and 1997 new Super 12 competition, these successes adding to his growing confidence and ability. But his decisions werent always sound; restless ambition cropped up and perhaps a growing ego.

Wales showed a genuine interest in him. Graham was keen and naively thought that the NZRU would support him in extending his coaching experience, despite them having blocked an earlier English approach. But the Unions reaction was swift and clear: pursuing this Welsh proposal would mean any All Black coaching possibilities would disappear.

This was patently a stupid reaction; already three well-known coaches were coaching international sides. This treatment raised Grahams determination to follow through in his ambitions, to coach at the highest level.

He left for Wales amid controversy to face a foreign rugby environment. The next few years required all his resilience, tenacity, determination and coaching ability.

In 12 months, the New Zealand coach had convinced Wales and its people that they could win at rugby again.

But then came a speed wobble! Wales exited at the quarter-final stage of the World Cup and in the 2000 Six Nations tournament the team suffered major defeats against France and England, the first signs perhaps that Waless stand-out successes were at an end.

Graham always expected to win. Losses were unacceptable and he suffered when they occurred. Answer? Try something different. This, too, was a feature of his coaching. So he persuaded Steve Hansen to join him to improve the Welsh forward performance; this coaching combination clearly a portent for the future.

Then another major decision: incredibly, he was asked to coach the British and Irish Lions. Coach Wales and the Lions? Impossible!

It was a seminal time in Grahams career. He faced a totally different rugby environment from any he had experienced players from four nations to mould into a united team, and a complex coaching and management group.

The tour, probably predictably, ended with a lost series, a fractured team and Graham shattered by the whole experience. It was his first major failure as a coach.

Back in Wales, where he should have stayed in the first place, he faced serious criticism from the Welsh players who had played a minor role on tour. Then the Welsh sides performances convinced him he should resign. Steve Hansen took over and Graham returned to New Zealand. A more dramatic conclusion to the overseas experience would be hard to imagine.

After stints in Japan and assisting Auckland and the Blues, his big opportunity came when the All Blacks lost the World Cup in 2003 and John Mitchells job was on the line.

The remarkable Henry coaching saga continued when he convinced the NZRU he could and should coach the All Blacks, which had been his aim over the past 28 tumultuous years. The next eight were to be equally dramatic and often controversial.

The years 2004 to 2007 saw mostly outstanding All Black performances. The disaster at Cardiff followed. Then that gutsy decision to reapply for the All Black coaching job.

Four years later came that dramatic one-point win over France and a World Cup victory in Auckland. There followed an outpouring of emotion and elation throughout the country and a knighthood for the Cup-winning coach.

The peak of the rugby coaching experience had been reached through a combination of resilience, ambition, hard work, rugby nous, constantly improved people management, some important, successful choices of personnel, a burning desire to win while playing attractive rugby, some good fortune along the way, and the experience gained from 37 years of coaching at all levels of the game.

He learned good lessons from his few failures and finished his coaching career as the most successful coach in New Zealands rugby history.

What next? Graham has the experience, the knowledge and the passion for rugby to perhaps consider looking at solving the two great ills in the modern game: the complexities of the rules, particularly around the second phase, and the scrum and the resultant inconsistency of the referees in trying to interpret these rules.

Better this than a bits-and-pieces man, helping everything and everyone, from Marmite to rugby league, Argentineans and Olympians.

What next for GWH?

Sir John Graham KNZM CBE

A lot happened in my 40 years as a rugby coach and I thought it would be appropriate to share the highs and lows. Its been an amazing journey and as I began recounting it to Bob Howitt, I sometimes wondered how I managed to survive there must have been a touch of madness!