Razor: The man the players love
Fun. Likeability. They’re things that can be overlooked in professional sport.
Who cares why teams play for their coach, so long as they do.
Scott Robertson likes to cultivate this windswept and interesting image, presumably to distract people from the excellence of his coaching record. As technical adviser, assistant and finally head coach he was part of Canterbury teams that won multiple national provincial titles, has guided New Zealand to a under-20 world championship and in his first season with the Crusaders has led them to a perfect 10-from-10 Super Rugby record.
It’s hard to be that lucky over that long a period. There has to be some method to the breakdancing madness.
‘‘Razor, one of his greatest strengths is he brings a lot of energy and the boys love him, you know,’’ Hurricanes backs coach Jason Holland.
Robertson recruited Holland to Canterbury from Irish club Munster, before the latter was enticed up to Wellington.
‘‘When you’re an energetic coach and things are fun, it’s easy to [get people to] work for you and he’s obviously got some good boys working with him [in assistant coach roles] who are getting some small detail right, which is helping them.’’
Holland and the Hurricanes are off to AMI Stadium on Saturday night, for one of the most eagerly awaited games of the season. Any New Zealand derby is a relief from the rest of the dross Super Rugby can throw up, but this game especially given it pits the unbeaten Crusaders against a Hurricanes team who’ve only lost to the Chiefs.
‘‘Attack-wise they’re pretty accurate in what they’re doing and they’ve got a good style of play,’’ said Holland.
‘‘They can be pretty direct and their set piece is pretty solid, but they can also play with a bit of width, so they’ve got a lot of threats. But the first one we’ve got to stop is their set piece and their attack being strong around the maul and scrum.’’
The Hurricanes have come through Friday’s 41-22 win over the Stormers fairly unscathed. Flanker Callum Gibbins has a shoulder problem and tighthead prop Jeff To’omaga-allen took a heavy knock, but Holland anticipated both being fit to play in Christchurch.
There’s been no progression in captain Dane Coles’ recovery from concussion, though, nor fullback Nehe Milner-skudder.
Holland said Milner-skudder is not going to be available ‘‘in the next couple of weeks’’ as he battles back from foot fractures.
Friday’s final score suggests the Stormers were put away pretty easily. The reality is the Hurricanes made hard work of things and that was reflected in the tone of their review session on Monday.
‘‘I thought we were pretty average at parts of our game,’’ Holland said.
‘‘There was an element of our attack where our skillsets weren’t quite where we wanted to be. We turned over a bit of ball and we didn’t quite nail our simple things.’’
Any backline steered around by Beauden Barrett will always be capable of brilliance, but Holland said this week’s focus at training would be the basics.