Review coach process
countries who don’t have the same depth as us and they leaped to different decision-making processes. We saw what happened in a couple of cases (with Dave Rennie and Jamie Joseph being snapped up by Australia and Japan, respectively).
‘‘This process was robust, we wanted people who were committed to it and it’s a reflection that the international coaching market is so competitive that a few other things transpired as they did.
‘‘We are certainly going to look at that and we think we can make tweaks going forward. We’ve got to look at timing, processes and all those things.’’
While they’re at it, they might also scrutinise the makeup of the appointment panel. There was a heavy establishment influence, with Taumaunu the only truly independent member. There was certainly a perception, reinforced by the early withdrawals of Rennie, Joseph and the soughtafter Tony Brown, that the promotion of Foster was a fait accompli.
Robinson emphatically denied this. ‘‘It was a really rigorous process, that was open and incredibly close,’’ he said.
‘‘We had a couple of outstanding candidates and I was happy by the end we had done everything we could to extract the information required to make a decision.
‘‘There was no sense from the people involved that this was fait accompli, despite the conjecture in the public arena.’’
There did appear one major contradiction. Despite waiting until after the World Cup to launch the process, Robinson confirmed the All Blacks’ tournament review did not inform their decision. It couldn’t, as it’s still a work in progress.
‘‘We set up a process to gather information that was independent of the review,’’ he said. ‘‘There were certain questions around what happened, what could have been done better and what we learnt that we thought about through the process.’’
Robinson shrugged off suggestions Foster’s massive head start on Robertson effectively put him in a one-man race and said his comments about being his own man and driving his own ideas had very much come through in the process. But he said Robertson, too, impressed with his vision for the team and remained very much on their radar.
‘‘He was a very strong candidate and we’ve got a huge regard for him,’’ said the NZR chief. ‘‘We certainly want to have him involved in the game in New Zealand for a long time. What that looks like we don’t quite know but he’s in our frame for the future.’’
Sounds in some ways like NZ Rugby might have had its cake and eaten it too. Given Foster his crack, and kept his potential successor right at hand. The next two years will tell us more about that.
‘‘It was a really rigorous process, that was open and incredibly close.’’