The Week That Was

Talking To A Member Of The Japanese Diet


It must be the season of politics for me. While intepretting for the Japanese Film Festival this year, I had the pleasure of making acquaintances with Mr. Tadayoshi Nagashima, Member of House of Representatives in Japan who came out to give a short talk on his village that disappeared under an earthquake in 2004.

Mr. Nagashima went from being the mayor who pulled out his villagers from a crisis with only 2 loss of lives, to the latest member of diet in the recent elections in Japan. Naturally, we got talking about a lot of issues. Partly because he was a candidate who came from a strong local support as opposed to a party apparatchik, he was quite open in discussing his position on many things. In fact I felt he was searching for answers on maany international topics.

Some of the topics we covered included North Korean abduction; the Yasukuni shrine problem; the media and policy; whaling and the IWC; the on-going diplomatic aggravation with China and South Korea and Japan's shouldering off 23% of the UN budget while it gets no representation at the Security Council. I got asked a lot about my perception of these issues being outside of Japan and well, I gotta say he came to the right man. :)

What was most refreshing about Mr. Nagashima was that he was very concerned about policy as a long term thing, and that at any given topic the decisions would have to stand up 100 years from now.

He said that most politicians in Tokyo were scared of the Media and would therefore try their best not to take a position; this in turn surrendered too much power to the Media in Mr. Nagashima's opinion. If one were in politics out of principle, then one should stick to principles instead of waver according to the prevailing winds. So the problems of North Korean abductions demanded the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Japan not mince words but point out in blunt terms the displeasure of the Japanese Government. And Mr. Nagashima's not kidding here. He's from Niiigata prefecture where the abductions took place. North Korean abductions are his electorates' very problem. Even the problems of the Yasukuni Shrine visits and so on come from the Foreign affairs department mincing words which leads to further misunderstandings. Mr. Nagashima had already been down to th Foreign affairs department to ask what they told North Korea, straight after being elected. In other words, here's a politician who is going to kick butt.

He was humble, he was curious, and he was most courteous, but above all, you felt he had a deep personal connection to his constituency. And no, he might not be the world's leading intellectual, but you sure knew he wasn't there for the pay or glory or power, but to do good work.

Eddie Jones Gets Sacked


It's such a bummer when you see a beleaguered coach get the chop. After all how much of the team's under-performance is his fault? In the case of Eddie Jones, coach of the Wallabies it seems it's a case of 50-50.

ARU managing director Gary Flowers said: "Professional rugby is a result-based game - one win in nine matches is far from satisfactory. The decision to search for a new coach was only reached after carefully considering the information that has been gleaned from our review and consultation with key people.

"This is a very difficult decision, but the ARU strongly believes we must give the Wallabies a fresh start with a new coach who will give us the best possible chance of future success. While the ARU board has decided to search for a new coach, we also recognise that Eddie Jones has made an enormous contribution to the game. However, it was clear that we needed to act now on the position of head coach.
"We will now be able to move forward and get on with the job of searching for a high calibre head coach to lead a coaching team that will get the best out of Australia's elite rugby players. This is not an easy decision, but it is in the best interests of Australian rugby."

I've met Eddie a couple of times through Japanese Rugby contacts. He's an interesting guy when you listen to him talk. Certainly his track record shows he's a disciplinarian and succeeds making teams disciplined, but it's also true that a certain point a coach's effectiveness in directing players starts to fall.

If I have one criticism of the way Eddie ran his team in the last 24months since the end of the World Cup, it would be that he was really reluctant to turn over the aging team roster. Most notable in that time was how he loyally stood by team captain George Gregan whose decline was very notable. There was no feeling as to how Australian Rugby was going forwards after the spectacular Grand Final finish at the 2003 World Cup where the Wallabies pushed the Lions into overtime and lost on a Johnny Wilkinson goal. Since then, it's looked like Eddie has been busy shoring up that team instead of building a new team as he once did with the ACT Brumbies.

Here's a post-mortem in the SMH.

Eddie Jones has gone down the same route as several of his predecessors in Australian rugby.

Alan Jones returned from a tour of Argentina in 1987 and was shown the door just three years after leading the Wallabies on a victorious grand slam tour.

Bob Dwyer, four years after winning the 1991 World Cup, was moved on. Greg Smith, who followed Dwyer, had two years at the helm and barely had time to get off the plane from South Africa before he was axed.

A prominent rugby official told me midway through the recent tour that the sharks were circling Jones and when the sharks are circling you never survive. How right he was.

It just adds weight to the adage that there are two types of coaches - those who have been sacked and those waiting to be sacked.

Indeed.

I Got Some New Stuff
My girlfriend bought me a Sony 19" flatscreen monitor for my birthday. It's pretty swank. I've also downloaded Firefox1.5 and of course it allows me to do more here at blogger, which is great.