Why Zinny found failure hard to handle

Quins having refused to pay New Zealand a transfer fee on top of their £200,000-a-year investment, Brooke had to wait six months until September 1998 before he could start in his dual capacity as player-coach. During that first full season, Quins finished amid the heights in fourth place.

With the reward of a place in the European Cup, the London club became increasingly confident that Zinny could fix it. He had, after all, begun his working life as an apprentice plumber.

But then it began to go wrong. Like many great players before him in various football codes, he found it hard to deal with professional players of considerably lesser ability. As one former player put it: 'The lack of basic skills was what he found hardest to comprehend.'

He appointed fellow All Blacks John Gallagher and Bernie McCahill in his management team, then dragged Will Carling out of retirement, a decision which, in hindsight, can at best be described as unfortunate. Carling had quit the previous season, storming out after a row with Brooke's coaching predecessor, Andy Keast.

When he returned it was, according to the former England captain, because he wished to leave in a more positive way. Instead he disappeared almost without trace, injury having restricted him to a handful of 80-minute appearances as the team returned to its bad old ways, finishing third from bottom.

Now they are second from bottom - after 12 defeats in 14 matches - cushioned only by Rotherham. Once he had finished as a player, Zinny could have called it quits and gone home to resume life as a prophet with honour in his own land. Instead he took a pay cut of more than £100,000 and stayed on as head coach.

He probably saw the writing on the wall some two years ago after Quins had lost four of their first five matches. 'This isn't rocket science we're talking about,' he told me at the time. 'It's a game of footie. There's no point the coaches doing all this work if the play-ers don't have the same desire.

'They have to realise this is their bread and butter. They are well looked after and well paid. There comes a time when you have to give something back.'

A team creaking not so long ago with too many players on the wrong side of 30 had been rejuvenated last summer under a new management regime. This would be the season when Zinny would make an impact or face the consequences.

Now, sadly, he has paid the inevitable price. Ironically, when Quins produced their one astounding result of the season, an improbable 11-6 Tetley's Bitter Cup win over European champions Northampton at The Stoop last month, Zinny had not been there to supervise it. Instead he was at home in New Zealand collecting another major award.

Back for the Saracens match, Zinny responded to a depressing home defeat with what sounded like a damning indictment of his team: 'We seemed to be throwing the towel in at the beginning.'

In the end, not even the man acclaimed by former New Zealand coach John Hart as the greatest All Black of them all could pull Quins out of the mire.