Robinson should quit, says Moffett

Former New Zealand Rugby boss David Moffett has blasted the organisation and called for chief executive Mark Robinson to resign in the wake of the messy All Blacks coaching saga.

A day after former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen launched a stinging attack on NZR and its operations, Moffett followed up with his own tirade, in an interview with Today FM’s Tova O’Brien yesterday.

Moffett, who was NZR chief executive between 1996 and 2000, believes Robinson should leave his post, and found it deplorable that he was ‘‘swanning around in Birmingham’’ instead of fronting media in New Zealand.

Asked if he felt Robinson, who was appointed in 2019 to replace Steve Tew, was up to the task, Moffett was blunt in his assessment.

‘‘No, I don’t think so,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s where I would disagree with Steve [Hansen]. Steve said that he thinks he’ll make a good CEO one day.

‘‘Well, the chief executive of New Zealand Rugby is right up there in terms of publicity and persona as the prime minister. I found in my day I used to do more media than the prime minister on some days.

‘‘We need somebody who knows what they’re doing, and if they make mistakes, like we all do, they can just own it.

‘‘Don’t hide, don’t blame the board if they make decisions, it’s him, he’s the chief executive, the buck stops with him. The board sets strategy and policy, that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. The rest of the time the chief executive is running the place.

‘‘I feel for these guys, because I’ve been there. But I never ducked the media. I always fronted, always took the flak, never made excuses. And that’s what we need to see in our chief executive. ‘‘Robinson needs to get back here and he needs to front the media and he needs to tell them what’s gone wrong, what he’s doing about it and be open, instead of hiding away up there in Birmingham.’’

Asked if he felt Robinson should resign, Moffett was equally frank. ‘‘Yes, I think he should,’’ he said.

‘‘Because this is just the tip of the iceberg. Any rugby CEO who does not understand that rugby is too much of a business to be a sport and too much of a sport to be a business – i.e. you’ve got to get that balance right – is always going to struggle.’’

Moffett said Robinson’s first mistake was appointing Sir Graham Henry to the panel which selected Ian Foster as the new coach, as he was going to control the process and be unable to be held to account. He noted that Henry raised concerns over Scott Robertson’s prospective assistant coaches, but that those guys like Jason Ryan and Leon MacDonald were all of a sudden seen as ‘‘saviours of New Zealand Rugby’’.

The former boss also raised big concerns over NZR’s duty of care to its employees, disliking the way Robinson had allowed Foster to ‘‘stand there and take all the flak’’, and believing sacked All Blacks assistants Brad Mooar and John Plumtree, and former Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore, could go down a legal avenue in the wake of their departures.

Adding to the chaos, Moffett felt, was that NZR had refused to talk following Hansen’s broadside on Thursday. Instead, a leaked email to Stuff revealed it felt the best course action was to say nothing.

‘‘They are further out of touch with reality than even I think that they are when they do that sort of thing,’’ Moffett said.

‘‘They said ‘well, you’ll only just start another round of news on any subject’. Well, guess what, because Mark Robinson’s swanning around over there in Birmingham and not fronting the media, it leaves a huge gap for people like me and other commentators to actually come in and say what has to be said.’’