The buck stops down there
At a press conference yesterday, held after a week of silence, New Zealand Rugby announced that despite a disastrous recent loss of form for the All Blacks, coach Ian Foster would keep his job. ‘‘I admit that the 32-19 loss to mighty Georgia last weekend was pretty shocking,’’ said the spokesperson, ‘‘especially coming after the losses to Armenia, Portugal and Guinea-Bissau that saw us failing to qualify for the 2027 Rugby World Cup after being bundled out early in 2023.’’
NZ Rugby chief Mark Robinson said the result was ‘‘not acceptable’’, then promptly assured everyone that Foster’s job was safe. A spokesperson said there was no need to overreact. ‘‘Ian Foster retains his job, but we’ve had a bit of a shakeup, and fired a couple of the assistant coaches. As we say at NZ Rugby, the buck stops down there.’’
A new forwards coach has been appointed and Stu Wilson, Andrew Mehrtens, Grant Fox, Carlos Spencer, and Dan Carter will come in as kicking coaches because the current coaches believe that the current team isn’t kicking enough possession away.
‘‘As well as bringing in a new forwards coach, we’re also looking at rearranging the deckchairs at the team’s hotel, and we’re hiring some more team psychologists,’’ said a NZ Rugby spokesperson. ‘‘We’ve got one team psychologist to deal with winning and four extra team psychologists to deal with losing given their high workload of late.’’ A press conference coach has also been hired to determine whether a press conference should be held at all, and to make sure they finish before any curly questions get asked.
As expected, Sam Cane was reappointed as captain for the upcoming test series with rugby superpowers Namibia, Burkina Faso and Cameroon, despite being subbed off in the loss to Georgia after only four minutes. ‘‘Caney took a knock in the second minute and started scrummaging for the opposition, so I took him off. But he reckons he’s right as rain today so he’ll definitely be starting.’’
Foster shrugged off the defeat to Georgia and promised a better performance against the Namibians. ‘‘Today is the day that the All Blacks turn things around and crouch, bind and set sail for a glorious future,’’ said the incumbent coach whose win/loss record now stands at 16 wins and 42 losses. He angrily denied that the All Blacks had been overtaken by the modern coaching methods in the Northern Hemisphere and that he was out of touch.‘ ‘We’re up with all the latest developments,’’ replied Foster. ‘‘We’ll be going through every missed tackle, every fumbled ball, every lost lineout and every infringement we made against the Georgians, just as soon as Schmitty gets the VHS of the game to me in the post.’’
Foster urged supporters not to give up on the All Blacks and that they would be making a special effort to crouch, touch, pause and engage with fans and the media over the next few months.
NZ Rugby administrators denied that there were far bigger problems in the organisation than coaching, such as its cumbersome and bureaucratic structure. ‘‘That’s just rubbish made up by the troublesome media,’’ said an anonymous spokesperson who wouldn’t answer any further questions until they ran them by their media manager who would then send the questions to the All Blacks’ manager who would then consult with the CEO of NZ Rugby before deciding to comment further.
Does the string of bad results make it look like the Silver Lake investment was a mistake? ‘‘Not at all,’’ replied NZ Rugby’s assistant financial coach, Diego Ponzi, ‘‘in the last month we’ve been outplayed, outcoached and outmanoeuvred, so why not be outsourced as well?’’
Another spokesperson denied that there was a lack of accountability in the organisation. ‘‘Just to give you a minor example, a junior employee had a prang backing the team van out of the hotel car park. We had an immediate inquiry and now we’ve hired a new rental car company that doesn’t charge as much for insurance. Problem solved.’’
So why did New Zealand Rugby cancel the press conference immediately after the Georgian debacle? ‘‘We’re protecting our coach from a media who wanted blood . . .’’ replied a NZ Rugby spokesperson. In future Foster will enter press conferences with eight forwards in front of him in a rolling maul.
But the resilient coach is not downcast. ‘‘The players back me,’’ he explained, ‘‘especially the ones who the media are saying are past it. We have some new blood in the form of a new forwards coach, and even brand new All Blacks official mascots – two cuddly little scapegoats called Plummy and Mooary.’’