Gregor Paul: NZ Herald rugby writer unpacks TJ Perenara's protest message and how it divided the team

TJ Perenara's infamous haka that divided the nation also ended up dividing the team, according to new reports.

The speech in te reo before the test against Italy in Turin came after the march to Parliament to protest the Treaty Principles bill.

The Herald reports many within the All Blacks felt blindsided, with a limited number made aware of the halfback's intentions hours before kick-off.

NZ Herald rugby writer Gregor Paul says Perenara originally set out to provide a message of unity, but few knew what that would actually entail.

"It should have been brought up earlier in the week at a leaders' meeting, it should have been put in front of the whole team to form a viewpoint."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, we're going to talk about TJ Pirean, a senior.
All Blacks coaches and indeed Rugby staff have all said
they felt blindsided by his protest before his final huker
last November. You remember that he ignited controversy making a
statement right before the Hacker that most of us have
interpreted as a criticism of the act Party's Treaty Principles Bill.

(00:20):
Members of the management and playing group have told the
Heralds Gregor Paul that they didn't give TJ permission to
politicize the Hacker, and Gregor Paul is with me this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Good ah, good evening.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So did anyone know exactly what he was going to do?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I don't think it's strictly clear that there was an
exact or specific mention of you know, here's exactly what
I will see when I lead the Hacker. My understanding
is that TJ was fairly consistent with a broadbrush view
that he wanted to provide what he called a message
of unity, and no one really inquired overly as to

(01:02):
you know, what specifically that would entail.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Do you think they should have?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh? I think there's yes, that there's clearly you know,
procedural or protocol faults internally within the All Blacks. Yeah,
if you go through what happened piece by piece, I
mean that should have been brought up earlier in the
week at a leader's meeting, you know, it should have
been put in front of the whole team to form
a view upon. And again, even even when management became

(01:27):
away late in the peace just before kickoff that that
TJ was you know, adamant he wanted to say something.
Even then, there were there were options available to management
to either you know, remove him as the hacker leader
if they were uncomfortable, or you know, or remove him
entirely from the match day twenty three if that's what
they felt. The risk of the scenario of him saying

(01:49):
something I'm sanctioned was going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So here's the problem I've got. So you've got this
story that's come out, so finally we're getting the kind
of the insight on what really went down. But at
the time after words, there was a big show of
unity from the playing and the coaching group. You know,
everyone was honky dory after it happened. So why the
show of unity afterwards?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, good question. I'm not sure they were Hunky Dorry.
I think they made a decision between certainly the captain
Scott Barrett and the coach Scott Robertson took a view
that look TJ. Perrinhara has been a wonderful servant of rugby.
He's a highly respected figure. He's been a warrior. You know,

(02:32):
he's deeply admired and respected in the team and in
the international rugby game. And he was making his last appearance.
So they took a view that they didn't feel that
they wanted to sully his reputation despite the fact they
were disappointed at the way things had gone that night,
that they could do the level best to support him
or to not give away that, you know, what had

(02:54):
really happened. He was moving off into Japan. They could
deal with this internally over the summer. They could work
out what went wrong, how they can improve that. Your
systems will need to put in place to make sure
it doesn't happen again. And they didn't need to tarnish TJ.
Paran Hour's reputation. But you know, in the end, well
that might be a kind of noble and admirable thing

(03:15):
that they wanted to do that does need to be
a public address of the issue, because it clearly it
doesn't matter what your politics are. Clearly it was divisive,
clearly disunited people. And the ol Blecks are all about
unity themselves internally, but they're a team that feels that
they're there to unite the country as well. They're the
people's team, so that kind of thing can't continue for them.

(03:38):
They can't divide people.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Gregor, thanks for that really interesting report, Grigapool and zid
Herald rugby Riding. For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive,
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