Can the All Blacks cope without Tricker and Smith?
New Zealand rugby has lost two of its brightest lights and the cost might turn out to be huge.
THE Secret Weapon and The Professor have gone. Will world domination continue without them? Not the cast and plot line of a new Marvel comic movie, but two key men, Don Tricker (AKA Secret Weapon, as he was dubbed by Steve Tew) and Wayne Smith (AKA Professor), who New Zealand rugby will have to learn to do without in 2018.
Tricker, off to a new job with the San Diego Padres baseball team, has the lowest public profile, but rugby power brokers such as Tew know what a gap he leaves here. ‘‘Big boots to fill,’’ was the comment by Steve Hansen. It’s no throwaway line.
At New Zealand Rugby Tricker’s title since 2010 has been high performance manager. On the ground with the All Blacks what that meant was having a man, himself a back to back world softball championship winning coach with the Black Sox, unafraid to think out of the square.
When Tricker coached a kids’ softball side he decided tossing the ball back and forth could get pretty boring. ‘‘So we went off to practise at the beach, chucking rocks into the sea. ‘Who can make the biggest splash? Who can throw the furthest?’ Then we worked on the mechanics.’’
At New Zealand Rugby he’d help generate ideas, and sometimes steer All Black thinking. ‘‘What have you heard?’’ was a favourite phrase, searching to find exactly what the All Black management group had taken from a one- or two-hour discussion.
In his softball days Tricker was known as someone with shrewd political skills, sometimes weaving his way through the passionate, often deeply personal, issues that come in a smaller sport where many of the people involved over generations are literally family.
So it’s probably logical that in his extensive involvement with Super Rugby coaches, he sometimes acted as a go-between in the delicate balance between a Super coach who wants his stars humming in March, April and May and the All Black coaching group, who want legs still fresh late in the year.
As a coach himself, Tricker, in a 2005 chapter in a book, Athlete Centred Coaching, co-edited by an Auckland university professor Lynn Kidman, championed ideas that echo everything the All Blacks, from Graham Henry onwards, have strived for, aiming to develop players who feel a genuine, personal connection to the team, finding something much deeper than a poster on a sports store wall.
For the All Blacks and Tricker that means player input. Tricker says he learned how important that was during his business life as an IT (information technology) specialist.
An example? He once worked for a firm that tried to rebrand itself. ‘‘(There were) new colours along with new purpose and core values. The staff knew something was going on because senior management kept sneaking off.’’
The new brand was launched to the staff of about 300 people at PHOTOSPORT the same time as customers were told. ‘‘How did (management) expect the new culture to be lived when the staff had no input into its creation? In business I had many experiences where the team culture was driven from the top down. In every instance it didn’t work, as the culture was never owned by the staff. ‘‘
How much did he contribute to All Black success since 2010? Results over the next two years, as the team heads towards the World Cup in 2019 without his input, may be one way to get a concrete PHOTOSPORT gauge on his worth. But it is worth noting that in the eight years he’s been part of the All Black machine they have had an 89 per cent win record.
If you’re at a camping ground this summer and see a wiry, energetic bloke, whose five o’clock shadow appears before lunchtime, parking a campervan on the site next door, look closely, it may be someone who has directly affected that remarkable success, Wayne Smith.
He was sacked when he was head coach in 2001, suffered as an assistant coach through two World Cup upsets at the hands of France in 1999 and 2007, but never lost his passion for the game, or the reverence he carries for the All Black jersey. That carried him through to two World Cup victories. His grasp of technical aspects of the game is spoken of by insiders in tones that are almost hushed, and his ability to relate to players is extraordinary. Tana Umaga, not a man given to gushing, says of how Smith deals with players: ‘‘He sees the good.’’
It’s surely no coincidence that whether it was the Crusaders, or the All Blacks, Smith’s left behind teams that have succeeded on the field without sacrificing decency in the process.