Greybeard ABs need Razor
Warren Gatland’s reputation is on the rise again. The drawn Lions series and Wales’s recent defeat of England mean that he is once more being talked of as a potential All Blacks coach. Gatland would probably do a good job. It’s pretty hard to do a bad one. But Gatland is the wrong man for the job.
The right man is Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson. That is become more and more obvious by the week. At the moment the All Blacks are in danger of becoming grey. They are coached and selected by an ageing group and their rugby is stultifying. At times over the previous two years the All Blacks have almost seemed out of touch.
The All Blacks need some vibrancy. They need to reach out and touch the nation. They need to excite young people, not least the players. They need a younger coach with new ideas who is at least close enough to the players to be able to spell Fortnite. They need more than individual brilliance.
Gatland is now 55 years of age. Ian Foster, Joe Schmidt and Dave Rennie are all between 53-55, older than Hansen when he took over. I am starting to think their time has come and passed. I am starting to think their time was after the last World Cup when Hansen, who like his team is trying to hang on, should have been moved on.
New Zealand Rugby has long favoured Foster because it is in love with this succession model, although the evidence in the world of sport is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It all depends on the successor and the players. Funny that.
But there are other models out there. Consider the age of the overseas coaches who have won a World Cup in the professional era. Rod McQueen was 49, Clive Woodward was 47 and Jake White was 43. That is an average age of 46. Robertson is now 44. He will be 49 at the next World Cup in France. There is a strong case for giving the job to a younger man.
Part of the success of the Crusaders has been down to the rapport that Robertson so clearly has with the players. McQueen, Woodward and White were the same. They had energy. They were free thinkers, even idealists at times. They were in touch with the players.
Those qualities are going to be increasingly vital for New Zealand Rugby as the overseas pull on its players becomes stronger and stronger. NZR needs a charismatic coach who can hang on to the players. Rennie, in his 40s when he started at the Chiefs, built loyalty. And when Rennie left, so did many of the Chiefs’ best players.
Foster, for all his Christian decency, does not seem to me to have the same charisma necessary to keep young players on these islands. Even Hansen, who started well in the
All Blacks job, developed favourites and began to leak players overseas. Hansen also lost a couple of stellar All Blacks in Aaron Cruden and Julian Savea because he did not have the breadth of people skills to keep them motivated.
So, I cannot think Foster is the answer. Hansen defended Foster’s mediocre record at the Chiefs by saying: ‘‘That’s because the Crusaders were winning everything at the time. Those things are irrelevant.’’
Er, Hansen’s statement is irrelevant. The Chiefs, in eight years under Foster, only played three Super knockout matches, losing two of them. Not one of those three matches was against the Crusaders. The Chiefs average placing on the table was between sixth and seventh. That’s a lot of other teams other than the Crusaders finishing ahead of them.
So if it is hard to see Foster as the right man for the job, then who else? Hansen and the NZR are hostile to Rennie, although he is clearly doing a good job at Glasgow. Schmidt has ruled himself out unless the NZR appoint a caretaker interim. It’s not impossible to see Hansen, in his newly appointed job as director of rugby, oh so nobly and selflessly sticking his hand up for that role.
And then there is Gatland. He has said he is going to sit on a beach after the World Cup, but I am sure he would brush the sand out of his shorts if asked. Gatland and Steve Tew haven’t always seen eye to eye but, if Wales continue to get results, the momentum might become hard to resist.
But it should be resisted. It would be like putting Jose Mourinho in charge of Manchester United. Mourinho was a superbly capable manager in so many ways, but by the time he came to United the youthful sparkle had left. He was too grumpy and too set in his defensive ways. The players didn’t want a bar of that.
I am not saying exactly the same fate would befall Gatland. He has earned the loyalty of the Wales’ players. Gatland’s former captain Sam Warburton said this week: ‘‘If he tells you you are going to do something, you genuinely believe you are going to do it. He genuinely believes he can beat anyone and everyone on his day, and the players feed off that confidence.’’
But Gatland is not in touch with this generation of All Blacks. That is one problem. New Zealand Rugby also badly need someone who can sell the message. Hansen, with his short put-downs issued from the side of the mouth, is not a man who wows the sponsors and gets you brushing your teeth in the morning with a joyful gurgle of anticipation. Hansen has also belittled opposition coaches once too often.
Gatland is more dignified, but did he need to say after Wales beat England: ‘‘We were smart tactically. They didn’t expect us to come with a pick-and-go strategy in the 22 and that definitely caught them out — I look back on England in the last few years. When it’s really mattered, I’ve questioned whether they can win these big games.’’
The statement was not necessarily untrue, but the timing was crude. You do not taunt the opposition after a victory. And you do not vaunt yourself as a master tactician. Yes, Wales were smart, particularly in the pressure halfback Gareth Davies put on Owen Farrell. But let others make those points for you. Otherwise you come over as a braggart and New Zealand does not need another one of those.
So for the sake of the future, NZR needs to move to bring in Scott Robertson. New Zealand Rugby is fearful to go there because of what happened with John Mitchell, who was appointed at the age of 37 after, ironically, coaching the Chiefs to a sixth-placed finish in Super Rugby.
But Mitchell himself will tell you there is a world of difference between a 45-year-old (Robertson’s age after the forthcoming World Cup) and a 37-year-old. In coaching terms those extra years represent another career. Woodward was also just too young (41) when he first coached England, but he was given time to learn from his early mistakes.
When you look at the captain Sam Whitelock has become under Robertson. When you look at the loyalty and enthusiasm of the Crusaders’ players. When you look at the cohesion of the coaches, who all say they look forward to going to work in the morning. And when you look at the results and the joyful, innovative rugby — there can be no other choice.
It would be a crime to wait until Robertson has lost that zestful juice which McQueen, Woodward and White so obviously displayed at successive World Cups. Surely NZR will appoint Robertson while he’s still riding the wave.
I suspect Robertson would be the players’ choice. And in the words of our more youthful pundits: ‘‘That would be sick.’’