Finding the right coach vital to future
Panel must ignore opinion and ask right questions
The All Blacks have found themselves in a world of contradictions now their World Cup is over. They are carrying a heavy load of pain and misery, and yet are optimistic and enthusiastic about the future. They are broken, yet also seemingly fixed. Finished, but just beginning. They are losing experienced players, and yet in their midst sit others such as Sam Cane, Ardie Savea and Jack Goodhue who will be thrust into lead roles, and with freedom to blossom, potentially the All Blacks will gain more leadership than they lose.
They have been building an all-out attack game that may, if they persevere with it, be capable of forcing a rugby revolution — demanding defence coaches everywhere give up their line speed obsession.
Or it may be, with England and South Africa in the World Cup final, the All Blacks have to join the defensive bandwagon. Get on board and try to tackle their way to the top of the world again.
What awaits is an era of unprecedented possibility or one of unfathomable disappointment. The All Blacks’ future depends on New Zealand Rugby installing the right coaching team now Steve Hansen has finished the most successful tenure in history.
The coaching appointment is key. Get it right, and the All Blacks could fly higher. Getting it wrong could be disastrous. And to get it right, the four-man panel charged with picking the next coaching team has to ask the right questions and ignore much of the proffered analysis, some of which would qualify for a PhD in lazy thinking with credit for missing the point.
The popular thing is to present the essence of the decision as a choice between the continuity assistant Ian Foster against the fresh voice of Scott Robertson, Dave Rennie or any of the other contenders.
But it’s a false premise on which to set the agenda. Continuity is a misnomer, as just as Hansen was drawn from a different kettle of fish than Graham Henry, whom he replaced, so too is Foster a vastly different character and coach to Hansen.
Ask any player who straddled both if they felt the Hansen era and Henry era were one and the same, and they will be able to explain at length that they weren’t.
The panel can’t be sucked into thinking that a vote for Foster is not a vote for change.
If there is continuity in promoting Foster, it is only in the sense he won’t be starting at ground zero in terms of understanding the pre-existing routines and processes and the rhythm of a test build-up.
He’ll know the strengths and weaknesses of the best players and have existing relationships.
To some extent, he will have been shaped by his experiences under Hansen.
There will be elements of Hansen’s style, thinking and philosophy that he will have adopted because coaching is a perennial learning experience where the best borrow and adapt little bits and pieces they pick up here and there.
But Foster, as those who have come to know him better in these past eight years have discovered, is his own man with the strength of personality and vision to create an environment within the
All Blacks that is chalk to Hansen’s cheese.
The other pitfall the appointment panel must avoid is seeing the All Blacks’ semifinal loss to England as a significant blow to his credentials. The popular view is that defeat of this nature taints Foster’s case when, if anything, it strengthens it.
Adversity was the key to England’s victory as it was to the All Blacks’ two previous World Cup successes.
Having failed doesn’t break Foster, it potentially makes him.
Sir Clive Woodward failed with England in 1999 before winning in 2003; Henry failed in 2007 before winning in 2011 — the former being a failure that Hansen also experienced.
Eddie Jones failed with Australia in 2003 and now he has bounced back to take England to the final.
Failure is a powerful ally, almost a rite of passage for ambitious coaches, and the panel need to consider that Foster is applying for the job pre-loaded as it were.
They need to ask what value they should place on adversity as a tool to drive rather than harm the vanquished.
Hansen has said several times in the past week that the failure of 2007 is what drove the All Blacks to World Cup victories in 2011 and 2015.
And, above all else, the panel needs to ask what exactly the All Blacks head coaching role comprises these days.
It’s long ceased to be for technical operatives. It’s even gone beyond being a place for the tactically astute, although that is still a requirement.
The job is all about devising a long-term strategy to achieve a long-term goal. Hansen says his time is spent mostly planning, selecting and then managing his coaching staff and players.
It’s a job that would be beyond those who lack empathy or don’t see player welfare, physical and mental, as imperative to success.
The coach is not there to motivate players — that is inherent within those who make it as far as the All Blacks.
He’s there to create an environment where the best can be their best; where they can win often and yet continually improve.
It is where they can lose and not be shattered by the experience and where they can understand their place in history and how they can add to it.
Hansen was able to hold a deep respect for the traditions of the game while also connect well with the Generation Y superstars who are emerging with phones in one hand and a chai latte in the other, because they are fearless about being who they want to be.
This is a generation that sees life differently and continues to be shaped and influenced by their digital world connections.
It is also a generation in a hurry.
The likes of Anton Lienert-Brown, Richie Mo’unga, Goodhue and Rieko Ioane arrived in Super Rugby with the sort of knowledge about preparation and professionalism that used to take about three years of test football to accumulate.
They are physically and mentally miles ahead of where the equivalent players of their age and experience were five years ago.
There are no stereotypes in their world. There are no preconceived ideas about conforming to a type and it is their lack of emotional baggage — their refusal to be inhibited by anything and determination to get somewhere fast that makes the potential of this emerging generation so enormous.
The question to ask the new coach is whether he can split himself across these two distinct worlds of honouring almost 120 years of tradition, while understanding the men who will be wearing it don’t have any of the same emotional levers to pull as their predecessors of even 10 years ago did.
If the panel ask the right questions, then they should find the right answer.