Kidwell: Blair is right skipper
David Kidwell’s convinced about Adam Blair, if nothing else.
The bloodletting from New Zealand’s dismal Rugby League World Cup campaign is yet to begin, with coach Kidwell off-contract and yet to decide if he’ll seek reappointment. Findings from an independent review are due to be announced in January, but Kidwell will have flagged his intentions well before that.
Not that many fans will feel the coach is entitled to choose. For some, the 28-22 loss to Tonga and 4-2 quarterfinal exit at the hands of Fiji will be enough to warrant a full cleanout of the Kiwis’ hierarchy.
But if people were cranky at fulltime on Saturday night, that’s nothing compared to how they felt following Blair’s post-match comments. Far from being contrite, the captain insisted the Kiwis had never been in better heart and that he was immensely proud of the culture they had created.
If this turns out to be the end for Kidwell, he’s sure that Blair is the skipper to take this group forward.
‘‘I’ve seen Adam grow and grow and grow. His words at the end ... touched everyone in that shed. In my eyes he is the right man,’’ Kidwell said.
For all their obvious individual talent – and talk of off-field cohesion – the Kiwis looked disconnected on the paddock. That theme persisted on the outside too.
While fans in New Zealand rallied behind Tonga and Samoa, to a lesser extent, the Kiwis struggled to develop the same rapport with the public. Of the 12,000 spectators that came to the quarterfinal at Westpac Stadium, a good number were there to support Fiji, while the previous week’s clash with Tonga in Hamilton amounted to an away match for the Kiwis.
‘‘Playing tests here in New Zealand and seeing the Pacific nations, they’ve stepped up. Their community, they’ve come out and supported their teams,’’ said Kidwell.
‘‘We’ve got to make sure that we’re performing on the field, we’re winning, we’re doing the right things off the field so that we can fill those stadiums with Kiwis supporters.’’
Kidwell said he had ‘‘a vision’’ for the team and what it could achieve and how it could become a side fans identified with. Whether he can make that a reality, he would decide in the next few days.
But he insists the squad is a harmonious one and identified young forwards Joseph Tapine, Danny Levi and Nelson AsofaSolomona as players people ought to feel encouraged by.
If the team have an issue, he said, it’s that they’re not ‘‘smart’’ enough. Inevitably it falls to the halves to provide the brains and direction and halfback Shaun Johnson and young five-eighths Te Maire Martin and Kodi Nikorima weren’t able to. Martin and Nikorima can hide behind inexperience, but Johnson’s been a Kiwi six years now.
Kidwell joined the lengthening line of coaches unable to coax consistency out of Johnson and appears to accept his legacy will be more about culture than results.
‘‘I said to the boys ‘don’t leave those values here’. I want them to make sure that the young Kiwis throughout the NRL – throughout their teams – know that if you want to be a Kiwi, you have to be a good person,’’ Kidwell said.
‘‘We want good people in here ... that people are proud of and are doing the right thing.’’