'Teflon' Tew's head should roll

A national disgrace, incompetent and the ultimate French farce. These are just a few phrases that leap to mind following the exit of the All Blacks in the quarter-finals of a World Cup we were supposed to dominate.

We have never been out of a World Cup this early before. There will no doubt be calls for calm and reflection and we will be promised all kinds of introspective reports to tell us the blatantly obvious.

This was a disastrous campaign right from the start.

Graham Henry bangs on about keeping the game simple yet conspired to make this campaign so complicated with his ill-advised insistence on a fundamentally flawed rotation policy and the nine-week conditioning programme.

I'm sure he will stand by those decisions but to do so would be to underestimate the feelings of his players. We know that there was a lot of concern among many of the players about the lack of game time and especially the rotation policy.

Many commentators who have previously worn the black jersey with pride have openly expressed concern about the cheapening of it and that is another issue that all New Zealand will want to see rectified.

I have written many times about the unhealthy obsession within the New Zealand Rugby Union about the World Cup. Perhaps now they will see the error of their ways.

If they don't, the expectations leading into 2011 will be unbearable. The union poured obscene sums of money into this campaign and asked us all to trust them because they knew what they were doing. We now know what they did with that trust and it's time to pay the piper.

Henry should do the honourable thing and resign. There is no future in the All Blacks for a coach that put all his eggs in the World Cup basket and delivered the worst result in history.

The next person who should immediately resign is Steve Tew.

The CEO-elect, who is known within the rugby administration world as "Teflon", cannot hide from his involvement in this debacle.

He, not Chris Moller, is responsible for the rugby side of the NZRU and he should have had the guts and nous to stand up to Graham Henry.

That he supported such a disastrous campaign indicates to me that he is not the person to lead the NZRU forward.

As for Jock Hobbs and the rest of the board, they have to look very carefully at the roles they individually played in this campaign. It is unrealistic for them all to go and I still believe Jock can help turn it around.

Most important, they are going to have to let the next coach know who runs the union in no uncertain terms.

Do not appoint a coach for the 2011 Rugby World Cup at this stage because if that is going to be the only measure of success, the coach will be forced into a position where major mistakes will be made.

David Moffett is a former boss of the New Zealand, NSW and Welsh rugby unions.