Franks sets sights on All Blacks Four in race for White Ferns job
Owen Franks has revealed a desire to add to his 108 caps for the All Blacks was the catalyst for his return to New Zealand as he gets ready to make his long-awaited debut for the Hurricanes.
The 34-year-old headed to England to play for Northampton Saints after he was a surprise omission from the All Blacks squad for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, but he is determined to give international rugby another crack.
‘‘I’m just competitive and I want to see if I can mix it again with these guys,’’ Franks said.
‘‘I really enjoyed my time in England. Northampton was a great club and I enjoyed the rugby. But it’s different when you know there’s no possibility of making the national team.
‘‘I don’t consider myself in the frame at the minute here but there’s just a different feeling when you know there’s a mountaintop to reach, so to speak, and that’s hugely motivating.
‘‘If you’re playing rugby in New Zealand and you’re eligible for the All Blacks and it’s not your goal then maybe you should rethink why you’re playing.’’
The two-time World Cup winning prop has been named on the bench for the Hurricanes’ Super Rugby Pacific clash against Fijian Drua at Sky Stadium in Wellington tomorrow.
It will be Franks’ first game of rugby in 15 months after suffering a torn Achilles before the start of pre-season, which threatened to end his Super Rugby Pacific season before it started.
‘‘I was doing some sprints and like anyone who has done it will tell you, it just happens out of the blue,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s pretty obvious because you look at your tendon and you can tell it’s missing.’’
Franks was originally told he faced somewhere between six and 12 months on the sideline.
‘‘I was really grateful when I got the contract here at the Hurricanes so I could get another crack here in New Zealand but when I ruptured my Achilles I was just desperate to repay the faith in the club because they were supportive and never showed they were disappointed.’’
Franks said he turned to Google and read up on what other athletes had done to hasten their recovery.
‘‘My dad always thought outside the box and it’s easier when you can Google other players who had done it before so that’s what I did. I found a couple of NFL players who had a ruptured Achilles and came back in four to six months.
‘‘Having confidence and knowing someone else has done it [helped]. It was the same at Northampton Saints where a prop ruptured his Achilles during a scrum session and came back in six or seven months.
‘‘So I knew it was possible and
Wellington Firebirds men’s coach Glenn Pocknall and former Australian star Joanne Broadbent are in the running to become the next White Ferns’ head coach.
The White Ferns’ head coaching search is down to the final four candidates with the first of two rounds of interviews to be conducted next week.
White Ferns assistant and former Black Cap Jacob Oram is also understood to be in contention for the top job.
Former head coach Bob Carter stepped away from the role in March after New Zealand’s disappointing Women’s Cricket World Cup showing on home soil, where they failed to make the semifinals – finishing the tournament with three wins and four losses from seven games.
Northern Districts men’s assistant coach Sri Krishnamurthy and Canterbury men’s high performance development coach Brendon Donkers could be other possible contenders.
Australian women’s bowling coach Ben Sawyer, who is also head coach of the Sydney Sixers women’s T20 Big Bash side and the Birmingham Phoenix in the English Hundred, was understood to have been sounded out about the position.
New Zealand Cricket spokesperson Richard Boock said they were ‘‘very happy’’ with the standard of applicants.
Several people will be involved in the interviewing process, but the panel charged with making the final decision will be NZC’s general manager of high performance Bryan Stronach, NZC chief executive David White, former White Ferns wicketkeeper Rebecca Rolls and an unnamed player.
The White Ferns’ next event is the inaugural T20 women’s tournament at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, starting in late July. There was a possibility the side could have an interim head coach for that event if the new head coach couldn’t start until later in the year.
Pocknall, who has been Wellington men’s coach since 2019, guided the Firebirds to the Ford Trophy one-day title in 2018-19 when he took on the coaching reins for that campaign. He also steered the Firebirds to back-toback Super Smash T20 titles in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Wellington captured the Plunket Shield under his coaching in 2019-20 – their first four-day title since 2003-04. In September last year he was temporarily in charge of a second-string Black Caps side on their T20 tour to Bangladesh, where New Zealand lost the fivematch series 3-2.
Broadbent, who played for Australia between 1990-2000, is head coach of the Northern Brave women’s side.
She was initially brought in as the assistant alongside head coach Kari Carswell for the 2019-20 campaign and moved into the head coaching position in 2020-21.
Whoever is named White Ferns’ coach will be tasked with turning around a side, who have fallen well behind the benchmark of women’s international cricket, Australia and England.