Coventry keen to help Ioane into All Blacks
New Blues forwards coach Tom Coventry has spoken of the importance to the New Zealand game of maintaining the rugby talent coming out of Auckland and how his new team, who won only one home game this season and finished second-tolast, aren’t far away from significant improvements.
In an interview with the Weekend Herald, Coventry, preparing for the start of North Harbour’s Mitre 10 Cup season on August 16 (his last before he takes on his new role alongside head coach Tana Umaga and assistant Leon MacDonald), also talked about his desire to take No 8 Akira Ioane to the next level as a regular All Black starter.
It is understood one of the reasons why Ioane, 23, agreed to stay at the Blues is the chance to work with Coventry, a straight-shooter who won two Super Rugby titles as Dave Rennie’s assistant at the Chiefs. The former Waikato loose forward is eager to take up the challenge.
Ioane represented the All Blacks against a French XV in Lyon in November last year but has yet to play a test. He trained with the All Blacks squad as they prepared for last month’s three tests against France and is considered by the national selectors as a player with immense talent but one who isn’t making the most of his size and power, especially on defence.
There are few better in the game in terms of destructive broken-field runners, or from the back of an attacking scrum, so if Ioane could improve in other areas, he could be a test star and potentially as soon as next year’s World Cup.
“I’ve met with Akira . . . he’s probably a bit disappointed he is not a regular starter in that team,” Coventry said of Ioane’s All Black ambitions.
“If you look at some of his numbers — he’s the best line-breaker in Super Rugby across all teams. He’s got some seriously good stats in that area. We just need to find the balance and make sure he’s sharing the load across other parts of his game, which is I think what the All Blacks desire and what Akira understands.
“It’s like any team — you have to share the load. You have to understand the job description and what is expected around workrate. It is quite easy to measure nowadays.
“Obviously Steve Hansen and Ian Foster look closely at those numbers and how that transfers to the All Blacks and how it also transfers to the success of Super Rugby teams.
“As a franchise, we aren’t meeting certain expectations in terms of numbers and haven’t shared the load. So we just have to find a way to do that.”
For Ioane, named recently the Blues’ Most Valuable Player of the season, the players’ player of 2018, and a man who played every minute of all 16 matches (apart from when he was sinbinned in one game), as for the franchise as a whole, subtle changes were required, said Coventry.
“We can just adjust those by making him aware of them and setting him some little goals. It’s easy to compare his carrying ability — he’s No 1 — so let’s get him cleaning out by putting his shoulder on people, and having him make a certain amount of tackles. “He just has to make sure he’s ticking more than one box and all our Super Rugby players who have gone on to be great All Blacks have been able to maintain those high standards in a number of areas. It’s what makes New Zealand players so sought after around the world. It’s why we produce the best players — because we’re multifunctional players. Maybe in the Northern Hemisphere, they coach guys to be good in one area only. That’s our strength and I think it always will be.
“I’m pretty sure the public would be keen to see him running out in the All Black jersey again because there are little bits and pieces that he’s done so far that have been pretty outstanding.”
Coventry, who coached London Irish for a season in 2016, will become part of a team who aren’t used to winning but who are not without talent.
“They’re not far off,” he said. “I know they haven’t won a lot of matches but they’re not far away and I don’t think the challenge is insurmountable. There are definitely some fix-ups that can happen in the shortterm and that’s what the fans want — they want the Blues area to be strong.
“We all do, it’s vital for New Zealand rugby, that talent coming out of Auckland, because we’re not going to be able to pick all of them — you’re never going to, but we get first pick and we have to make sure we get the first pick right.”