| Wednesday, July 18, 2012 7:44 AM

I feel sorry for Pat Lam.

Not sorry in a sense I have a vested interest in the success of the Blues, because I don't.

Canterbury will keep winning because Canterbury know how to win - year and and year out - and when you grew up there, it never leaves you.

But Pat Lam, it would appear, is not only Lam in name but Lam in nature, as in sacrificial. It's not to say I don't like John Kirwan, because I do, which makes this process so much more messy.

By all accounts the problems with Auckland rugby go far deeper than just the coach of the Blues.

I would argue the performance of a team goes far deeper than just a coach. To pin the success, or in this case, failure, on a bloke who is not even on the field is an odd business.

But then sport is an odd business. It's win or lose, it's great or disastrous.

There seems to be little room for nuance and subtlety. Graham Henry who was part of the interview process in this Auckland business, knows a bit about that.

Which is why I assume the story goes that he was supporting Lam for another season. He has been where Lam is, perceived as a losing coach. Yet he got another chance, and look what happened.

And that's the irony of sport: That those who spend their lives watching and writing about it so often miss. In their seemingly never-ending desire to find a victim or something sacrificial, they forget what might just be if you stopped and took a breath.

We stopped and took a breath for Henry, and now we can't get enough of him. In fact he talks about it in his book, he tells amazing stories about Auckland rugby - the detail of which will have to wait until the embargo passes.

But believe me, if they learnt the lessons of the past they might not be finding themselves in the sort of trouble they find themselves in today.

Of course if Kirwan turns up next year and it all turns around, the name Pat Lam will be confined to history as that bloke who led the team the year it all went wrong.

But as little as I know about sport, what I do know is that at the elite level, especially at the elite level that involves a team, it is rarely the case that it's one blokes fault.

You'll note that Henry, in winning the World Cup and taking that knighthood, was never slow to credit those who were actually on the field.

I would hope that those who were on the field for Lam this year have taken similar steps as regards to their responsibility for what went wrong.

If sacking people is the answer and the path to success, then Lam surely cannot be the only sacking.