Loose Pass

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with identity, bętes noires and player power.

The two surprise teams top of the Super Rugby log after three games are the Sharks and Highlanders. But while the Sharks have been threatening a breakthrough season for a couple of years now, there are few who saw coming this level of resurgence from Invercargill and Dunedin.

The Highlanders had become synonymous this past couple of years with that most unfortunate of rugby brands: entertainers with little or no mental edge (have the Lions taken on this mantle?) and doomed to produce high-quality players sure to be snatched up to the better teams. They were in danger of becoming the 'fifth franchise', the feeder to the others, evidence by the departure of Israel Dagg this year.

But Jamie Joseph has manufactured a remarkable turnaround, something he put down this weekend to: "basing it off what the Highlanders were like between '98 to 2003."

This aspect of rugby seems to be oft-forgotten and crucial in equal measure. Stade Français, for many years among the entertainers of the Top 14 under the suave Fabien Galthié, are now struggling under the dour Michael Cheika having wallowed under the equally dour Ewen McKenzie, neither of whom bring a style and personality that seem to fit well with the fancy Parisians.

Leicester stuttered when Marcelo Loffreda came in - it's just not a part of Leicester's culture to readily accept lessons from outsiders. No sooner had they reverted to type and promoted Richard Cockerill from within, they began thriving again. Once Toulon had found a coach in Philippe Saint-Andre whose ego matched that of owner Mourad Boujellal, the team finally began realising potential.

There are countless other examples, not just in rugby. But the bottome line is this: if you are in the market for a Head Coach, you need to consider whether he will fit into the history of the club, whether he will maintain the club's key styles and identities rather than try to begin his own revolution. If your club thrives on a forward-based culture and you want to bring in a coach who will open up the backs, be sure it will also be a coach who will not neglect the forward-based culture at the backs' expense. This, more than any other reason, is why the Highlanders are top of the log, and we think they'll be there for some time.

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There are probably several player/team v referee relationships in the game which will never result in a Cliff Morgan/Basie van Wyk Christmas card relationship for years to come (your writer has one himself), but few can be laced with such antipathy and venom as that between Victor Matfield and Stuart Dickinson.

Matfield does not have a reputation particularly as a moaner, but put him on a field with Dickinson and sparks fly. It took just three minutes of Friday's match against the Highlanders for Matfield to become not only vocal in questioning Dickinson's decisions, but audible from a couple of metres over the noise of 30-odd thousand people through Dickinson's mic.

As the game went on, Matfield's tirade rarely let up, just as it didn't in Edinburgh this past November when Dickinson refereed Scotland's surprise win over South Africa.

As for whether he is justified or not... well, Dickinson has his critics. Our view is that he sometimes looks for the technical more than the material. Matfield plays for two teams that make a plethora of technical offences which are often immaterial - players would simply call it 'marginal', or 'pushing the boundaries'. So there's bound to be frustration.

As a bęte noir relationship though, it is a classic. For the neutral, the humour value is almost inestimable! As to whether Matfield's level of ranting is justified though... well, let's just say Matfield does not often win in matches refereed by his nemesis...

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If you've ever been an active serving non-playing member of a rugby club anywhere in the world, you'll know that the subterfugal in-house politics and enshrined powerhouses often make G8 summits look like a short story for toddlers.

But every once in a while, you get a clear insight as to what happens when one person goes against the grain, such as Andy Friend seems to have done in Canberra.

David Nucifora, who coached the Brumbies to a Super Rugby title in 2004, also lost the players and was axed, despite general opinion stating that some Brumbies might be getting a tad long in the tooth.

Strong rumour abounded that Nucifora was getting ready to begin the re-seeding process, which presumably led to the player reaction.

So what did Friend have? He had an assistant team of Stephen Larkham, Justin Harrison and Marco Caputo, all past-serving Brumbies players and two of whom were in that team that had Nucifora put out to pasture. Was there ever likely to be any other outcome?

Loose Pass compiled by Richard Anderson