IT HAS always been steel studs and point-of-the-boot stuff from New Zealand when it came to rugby union and Australia - no favours asked and none freely given.

So, accept the gift pass the New Zealand Rugby Union has thrown the Wallabies and sign up Robbie Deans to a two-year contract rather than the four-season term into the World Cup year in 2011 that has been anticipated.

Deans will be the best thing to happen to rugby in Australia since Carlos Spencer's cut-out pass to Stirling Mortlock's chest in the 2003 World Cup semi-final.

Let the Kiwis keep Graham Henry and his coaching partners, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith. After all, they won the Bledisloe Cup and the Tri-Nations tournament trophy against Australia and South Africa for their cabinet.

They were the brains trust which came up with the plan to remove New Zealand's 22 top-line players and wrap them in cotton wool for the first half of the Super 14, in order to prevent fatigue before the World Cup in France.

At the time, it might have seemed a brainwave - whatever the sponsors, broadcasters and, most importantly, rugby followers, who invest their money in stadium seats, thought.

The immediate consequence was that there followed an all-South African final in the Super 14. Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and their fellow big men of the Bulls of Northern Transvaal won the tournament, with winger Bryan Habana - ultimately international player of the year - scoring the trophy-winning try at the last gasp.

Henry has conceded he erred in depriving his players of the hard-match preparation and sharp edge that the Super 14 would have provided. It will never happen again while he is in charge. Promise.

But the rotation system will continue, as it should, as long as there is no compulsory 12-week break between seasons for representative players - the recommendation decreed by the International Rugby Board in the face of the powerbrokers and money men of European club football.

It was absolutely criminal that South Africa should accept an international against Wales in Cardiff a month after the Springboks' World Cup triumph and, worse, accept a fixture against the Barbarians a week later.

The Boks won the international against Wales and, understandably, lost the non-international against the Barbarians - by which time John Smit and his players were well and truly in holiday mode, their minds presumably back at Champagne Castle in the Drakensbergs.

So, back to Graham Henry and the quarter-final loss to France.

Rotation is all very well. But, given that Chris Jack - one of the world's top three line-out jumpers - was on the reserves' bench, perhaps limited but not seriously restricted by a shoulder injury, why was he omitted from the run-on team against a French side regarded as the best in Europe and playing for its very World Cup existence against the tournament's hot favourites?

New Zealanders love a hard man in their All Blacks packs. Henry wanted Keith Robinson, a tough man plagued by injuries which sidelined him for much of two seasons, at lock.

For all his lack of match-conditioning rugby, Robinson went to lock, beside Ali Williams.

Likewise, Henry kept faith with the younger, more dynamic Luke McAlister at inside-centre, preferring him to the midfield bulwark of recent seasons, Aaron Mauger, and running Mils Muliaina, normally fullback, at outside-centre with specialist centres Conrad Smith and Isaia Toeava left twiddling their thumbs.

Before the game, the 22-man French squad stood three paces from the All Blacks at the Haka, one-third in red, one-third in white and one-third in blue. Was there an international before where two teams have been so close to each other's throats, so near to all-in carnage? New Zealand blinked.

For a while, Henry's plan worked. New Zealand led by 13 points before McAlister was sin-binned by English referee Wayne Barnes, who then ruled as legitimate a pass to Frederic Michalak which led to France's winning try.

Equally damaging was the calf injury to Daniel Carter in the second half which had him limp from the field, followed a quarter of an hour later by his replacement, Nick Evans.

The All Blacks went home to accusations of being soft and "chokers".

Little wonder Doug Howlett, a tremendous try-scoring winger in his time and a discard from Henry's quarter-final squad, went on a $28,000 bender after the tournament. It would have driven any New Zealand rugby man to drink.

So, Henry stays on. The archly conservative Kiwis never gave John Mitchell a second chance after the 2003 World Cup. But now New Zealand have handed us their best young coach, a four-times winner of the Super 14. Sign up Robbie Deans and be grateful. And forget the narrow-minded notion that it is unpatriotic to have a New Zealander in charge of the Wallabies.