If ever we needed confirmation that the New Zealand Rugby Union is losing touch with the base of the national game, it came with the staggering admission by chief executive Steve Tew the union didn't realise the level of anti-Graham Henry sentiment that existed as it went about reappointing him.
Wakey, wakey gentlemen. You need to listen to some people other than yourselves at times.
How about the common rugby fan for a start? The passionate sort that turns up to club footy on Saturdays and who forks out big money to watch the stars in action, too.
The sort who is willing to give their opinion through polls, letters to editors, talkback radio, posting comments on websites, or just having a chin-wag down at the local pub, club or around the coffee machine at work.
Their sentiment was reflected squarely in many areas at the time. The opinion polls we were running on RugbyHeaven.co.nz - a rugby specific website - had a 2-1 preference for Robbie Deans over Graham Henry.
Media outlets were running higher than that with their suggestions from respected rugby writers and commentators that change had to happen.
It defies belief that the NZRU couldn't pick up on the emotions and depth of feeling that were swirling around them at the time. Whether that would have swayed them is another matter, of course.
To this day I struggle to find people, rugby fans and general sporting fans alike, who are able to grasp how Henry was reappointed.
But what is almost more unbelievable is how the NZRU couldn't hear the drums that were beating around them.
There is now a growing feeling that the country needs to move on and I'm in that camp. As inspirational skipper Richie McCaw pleaded, it's time to get the show back on the road.
But, as Tew has even admitted, it's going to take a long time for these divisive feelings to disappear.
There's a chance they never will, such is the bitterness in some areas.
There's a Civil War going on out there. It's been raging since October 6 last year and its paled previous debates like Hart-Wyllie-Mains in comparison.
In the wake of a competent All Blacks opening win in the new Henry era last weekend that was soothing some of the sores, Tew himself has now ripped the scabs off the issue again with this stunning public admittance.
And everyone knows it will only take one Wallabies win over the All Blacks for the vast majority of the rugby public to shout "we told you so".
It seems impossible to think that the people involved in the appointment process last year, done with un-nerving haste in the aftermath of our worst World Cup performance, couldn't realise that rightly or wrongly reappointing Henry was always going to divide the nation, especially when there was such a highly qualified alternative.
It smacks of the arrogance tag the NZRU is so often labelled with.
Were they squirming with every Crusaders' win as Deans marched towards a personal fifth Super rugby title or were they oblivious to the embarrassment of that?
The NZRU appeared to take some quiet glee in the fact that the Australians were only able to appoint their new national coach after New Zealand had made their decision on who would be in charge of the All Blacks.
That's small comfort, especially when most fans on either side of the Tasman consider that the best coaching option has just crossed the ditch. It certainly looked like Aussie boss John O'Neill couldn't believe his luck as a coach clearly in his prime was handed to him on a plate.
The NZRU are moving in the right direction as they try to rid the game of some of the apathy that has enveloped it over the last year or so when rehabilitation, rotation, a stale diet of matches and then the World Cup loss have disillusioned fans.
They are clearly trying to get the All Blacks back into the public eye outside of actually playing matches. They have even announced a test against Samoa to be played in New Plymouth, a grass roots stronghold.
But these are reactionary moves. It could be that like Robbie Deans, the horse has bolted. And he's done so amongst a wave of discontent.
Perhaps what's more worrying than surprising is that it seems the NZRU are only just waking up to that realisation.
ON A SIMILAR THEME, it was equally bemusing to hear Henry trying to have us believe that there was no obsession with the World Cup from the All Blacks.
How could that explain the constant rotation that was designed at developing depth to ensure the All Blacks didn't run into problems like they did in 2003?
How could that explain the need to take the bulk of the World Cup squad out of half of last year's Super 14?
How could that explain the NZRU clearly listing World Cup success as their No 1 goal for 2007?
If that doesn't sound like obsession, then I need a new dictionary.
