Another own goal with Razor in limbo

NZR adds to Shakespearian farce and tragedy as revered Super Rugby coach left out of process for national job and could be gone

When former New Zealand Rugby chairman Brent Impey said last year that the professional players would be scoring the greatest own goal in the history of sport by rejecting the initial deal with US investment firm Silver Lake, it was a comment so egregiously wrong and damaging that it ironically became a contender to be crowned the greatest own goal in the history of sport.

Only a contender, mind, because own goals have become a highly competitive category in the last few years and NZR has amassed quite the portfolio.

The initial Silver Lake proposal — negotiated without a legal mandate from the Rugby Players’ Association to alter the terms of the Collective Employment Agreement — was a spectacular own goal every bit the equal of Impey’s comments about rejecting it.

There was a warped logic to that initial proposal as, had it been approved, NZR would effectively have parked about $200m in the bank and become a de facto fund manager, while the actual fund manager, Silver Lake, would have effectively been running the professional game.

Booting the South Africans out of Super Rugby and then disdainfully offering the Australians a chance to bid for three teams was another memorable own goal.

The Black Ferns debacle could really be counted as two own goals — as the review into the campaign was riddled with conflicts of interest and then the outcome was to leave coach Glenn Moore in charge, only for him to resign a week later.

NZR has become not only a spectacular own-goal scorer, but a spectacular scorer of spectacular own goals and it may be that the national body, clearly in great form, is about to produce the single greatest strike of self-destruction by enabling the most successful coach in Super Rugby history and hottest property in the global game, to wander into the warm embrace of England.

It’s a situation that carries Shakespearian elements of farce and tragedy largely because rugby in this country is being run like a feudal court, where personal political agendas operate unchecked and those who pay fealty can be rewarded.

Nothing will shame New Zealand more than to see Scott Robertson, a man who has won six from six titles with the Crusaders and who metaphorically shouted from the rooftops this week that he wants to coach the All Blacks, be left like an unwanted child on the steps of the orphanage.

But unbelievably, that’s a prospect that seems more likely to happen than not and Razor, smart, innovative and bursting with ideas that keep the teams he coaches ahead of the game, may be about to find out that after NZR metaphorically rounded the keeper in 2019 by leaving their All Blacks appointment process so late in the year, they are now about to bang the ball in the back of the net by giving Robertson no indication at all about their future coaching plans.

No other country will be beset by indecision or doubt, and it is inevitable that Robertson, who intriguingly met with England coach Eddie Jones in Sydney recently, will receive in the next few months — if he hasn’t already — a hard offer to coach an international side in 2024.

If NZR says nothing and does nothing in the next month, Razor will be gone and it may be years before he returns, if he ever does.

NZR go to ridiculous lengths to protect their IP from being misused on beach towels and playing cards, and yet Robertson, equipped with enough rugby knowledge to fill the Library of Congress, can seemingly be waved off at the airport.

And if he does go to England, get ready to add them to the list of teams — which currently reads Ireland, South Africa and France — who regularly beat the All Blacks.

NZR needs a plan and a process, because without one, they will once again be picking the ball out of the back of their own net.

It needn’t be an overly complex business getting a plan together, because surely everyone can see that NZR’S options are to either appoint Razor as head coach after the All Blacks get home from South Africa or to agree in the next few weeks, that he will be taking over in 2024.

A closed process to appoint him would preclude the likes of Dave Rennie, Jamie Joseph and Vern Cotter from staking their respective claims, but as much as NZR need to back Razor, they need to back their own development pathways and endorse success in Super Rugby as the best means to land the All Blacks role.

If winning six consecutive Super Rugby titles isn’t deemed a strong enough case to graduate to the All Blacks then it will be yet one more own goal, with NZR effectively confirming they don’t rate the competition they were so desperate to own and boot everyone else out of.

And then there is the fan base to be considered. While NZR can’t be ruled by the Twitter-mob, huge swathes of the public appear to have attached themselves to the Razor bandwagon, seeing him as a coach in whom they can believe and when the financial house is built on the success of the All Blacks, the danger of the whole thing collapsing becomes real when people lose their conviction and connection.

NZR may think they can win hearts and minds with PR spin, but fans are governed by what they believe is an irrefutable logic that will say the national body rejected a coach who won six successive Super Rugby titles, to give the All Blacks’ job to someone, who in eight seasons with the Chiefs, took them to one final where they were beaten by a record margin.

If that same rejected coach goes on to build England into the most fearsome team in the world and kicks the All Blacks all over the hallowed turf of Twickenham, no spin doctor can apply enough medicinal prose to re-write that narrative.

Be it now, or next year, Razor is the All Blacks’ future and someone needs to not just tell him that, but get a contract in front of him so he can believe it.