Foster has ‘very smart’ rugby brain
Even he admits Scott Robertson is the people’s choice, but a former comrade of Ian Foster has gone into bat for a man under pressure ahead of the All Blacks coaching announcement.
Foster has the most to lose from tomorrow’s big job interview at New Zealand Rugby headquarters. The current assistant has been long-touted as the Steve Hansen successor after eight years under the hood in a largely successful operation, in an organisation that has favoured continuity.
But following the World Cup failure, coupled with his lack of success on the domestic front, public opinion has clearly shifted towards the breath of fresh air that would be ‘Razor’ Robertson.
Just not so fast, though, warns Duane Monkley – both a former Waikato team-mate and coaching companion of Foster’s – who can reveal what makes him tick.
Monkley was there in Foster’s first year in charge of the Chiefs in 2004, brought in as an ‘assistant manager’ but acting mostly as a ‘defence co-ordinator’.
He had been in the same role with Foster in the years prior for Waikato, too, and around the same times he also worked with John Mitchell and Warren
Gatland, who have also forged international coaching careers.
And Monkley vividly recalls how, even that early in his coaching career, Foster was an extremely smart operator.
‘‘We’re all wired differently, and being a first five-eighth, Fozzie had a real brain for how the game is to be played, and how the game evolves,’’ Monkley told Stuff.
‘‘Fozzie was really driven about how the game was to be played. It was more than just ‘back attack’, it’s like ‘team attack’. He was quite a step above both Mitch [Mitchell] and Gatty [Gatland] at that particular time, from my experiences.
‘‘He’s quite amazing, he’s one of those guys who could hardly have a conversation with people without having the whiteboard. He’d be doing drawings on the whiteboard all the time to communicate how things were to be played.’’
In a Waikato team of the 1980s-90s that also featured other future coaches like Andrew Strawbridge and Tom Coventry, Monkley remembers how many of them were almost coaching while they were playing.
‘‘I think Fozzie’s always been a rugby coach. That was his thing.
‘‘He’s got a bit of a gift of the gab, so he communicates really well. He’s very, very smart, very, very clever. Obviously that’s why Steve Hansen picked him to be his assistant all that time.
‘‘And he drove a lot of that attack. My understanding is he was very, very influential in the way the All Blacks have played over the last nine years.’’
But what of his lack of titles on the local scene, though?
The big knock on Foster has always been that there were was nothing in the trophy cabinet from his time as head coach of both Waikato (2002-03) and the Chiefs (2004-11).
But Monkley said people needed to look deeper than that, and in regards to the Super Rugby stint, points to the change to franchise contracting which only came in in Foster’s final season.
‘‘The consistency through that period of time under Fozzie was pretty good. While it didn’t reach the highest level, we probably didn’t have the cattle, the stars that the Crusaders or the Blues had, either.
‘‘And when Dave Rennie became the coach of the Chiefs, the contracting was different, so he could pick anyone throughout New Zealand, whereas Fozzie didn’t have that luxury.’’
Just days away from the big outcome, Monkley is as intrigued as anyone how it will turn out for his old mate.
‘‘He doesn’t have the public following as Scott Robertson does, that’s pretty obvious,’’ he said.
‘‘Scott Robertson’s got some real strengths too – the players love him, and they go to war for him.
‘‘It’s a really tough decision.’’