‘Dr Deb’ has a (female) insider’s view of All Blacks
Given the wider support network top sportspeople now have through the various levels of medical involvement, it was inevitable that women would become part of the All Blacks management team.
Debbie Robinson, known as “Dr Deb” to all who had dealings with her during her seven years as All Blacks medico from 2006-13, had an active sports portfolio before stepping up to the test rugby role which included the Sydney Olympic Games and three years with netball’s Silver Ferns.
Her success with the All Blacks saw her elevated to a role with World Rugby’s council in 2017 and, while it is still early days in that, she is in a strong position to make recommendations for the future of the game.
Robinson’s own background included playing stints in provincial hockey for Marlborough and Canterbury.
Once qualified in medicine, her colleague Rob Campbell was looking after the Crusaders while Robinson was working in the netball area in Christchurch.
When Campbell needed to drop the role he asked Robinson if she was interested. When first asked, she lacked the confidence to take it on with a team at that level.
But 12 months on he said he did really need to finish and asked again if she was interested. This time she said she was happy to have a go.
Before the Crusaders she had a stint with Canterbury in the NPC in 2001 and the two coaches that year were Steve Hansen and Aussie McLean.
“Steve really about integrating me into that environment, he thought it was good for the team to have a female and that made the whole thing quite a lot easier. It wasn’t necessarily that I was chasing rugby, it was that I was sports mad and enjoyed my job and team associations.”
She felt 90-95 per cent of rugby people were happy with her involvement while Hansen had told her to get involved and she backed herself to make decisions that she didn’t put people in awkward situations.
“I’ll never forget one conversation with Mark Hammett when he said to me a couple of years later, ‘You know I wasn’t sure when you came on board but I just loved having you and it’s worked really well.’ He didn’t say anything at the beginning but he did later on. So that was really cool.”
Rugby players were not difficult to cope with, compared to other sports, she said.
“On the whole rugby boys just get on with things, they are truly sort of undemanding.
“Certainly I would say there are some other environments, sportswise, that are more demanding than rugby, and I would say rugby is probably one of the less demanding ones. Guys just get on with it.”
So far as the increasing profile and programmes for women’s rugby were concerned she felt it was a touch early to make comparisons on the sorts of injuries experienced in the men’s and women’s games. At the moment the good women players were coping well through the Farah Palmer Cup and the number of tests they were playing a year was still small and their workload quite manageable.
That was a challenge for the future. “I think the women’s game will continue to develop to suit itself.
“We have some heated discussions at the top level about whether we’re trying to play like the men and what I just say is, ‘ It’s rugby, it’s going to have its little nuances and the game will just keep developing those to suit itself’,” Robinson said.
The women’s game had advanced for several reasons around the world but in New Zealand the growth and move toward semi-professionalism had provided options for players and also for those not built to play netball or hockey.