Robertson in a new ball game with ABs
Scott Robertson, at some stage in the next few months, will inevitably have a moment when the euphoria of having been named the next All Blacks coach will be replaced, momentarily, by crippling fear.
It’s a job where the twin imposters of triumph and disaster sit uncomfortably close to one another, often separated by nothing more than the bounce of the ball.
Asked about the pressure of being the All Blacks coach and the almost overbearing responsibility it carries, Robertson said: “I get excited by this stuff. This is what gets me going. It’s important I take the next step up and be ambitious. It’s great timing.”
It’s partly Robertson’s indefatigable spirit and boundless energy that has driven him into the All Blacks role, qualities he will need next year when the reality of what he has taken on hits home.
And for Robertson, there remains a chance, one much higher than most are willing to believe, that he will find himself in charge of a world champion team. If the All Blacks win the World Cup this year, it will bring NZR’s highperformance thinking into question and force chief executive Mark Robinson to justify the decision to effectively dump a coach who went on to deliver the Webb Ellis trophy.
By extension, it will ramp up the pressure on Robertson, as expectations will suddenly be that bit higher, and gone will be any sense he was appointed on a mandate to rejuvenate a side that had lost its way.
Gone, too, will be a host of senior players such as Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith, Dane Coles, Richie Mo’unga and, for 2024 at least, Beauden Barrett.
No doubt Robertson will relish the opportunity to find the next generation of stars, but he’s losing 500-plus test caps, the best locking pair the country has known and the only two experienced playmakers in New Zealand.
What he will also find when he comes into the job is that the playing cohort needs to be coerced out of what could be considered a siege mentality towards their employer.
Throughout most of 2021 and much of 2022, the All Blacks and NZR were at war with one another over the Silver Lake proposal which the players opposed until the deal was reworked and signed off last June.
Tensions between the two have never properly eased and the decision to send the All Blacks to the World Cup with a coach who has not been backed by his employer has only intensified the players’ sense that there is little unity and cohesion between themselves and NZR.
Some kind of peace treaty will need to be struck next year, as while the players can harness a sense of injustice about the way their coach has been treated to drive a successful World Cup campaign, division is not a long-term mechanism for success.
New Zealand’s most successful eras have come when there has been a mutual respect and close professional bond between the chief executive and All Blacks head coach.
Unity between NZR and the All Blacks is the more powerful means by which to deliver success, and Robertson, as a former Crusaders teammate of Robinson, is going to have to use their personal history to reconnect the two entities in 2024.
The new coach is also going to take charge of the world’s most commercialised rugby team — one which carries close to $100 million a year in sponsorship and one that will have ever-increasing demands placed on it to fulfil content requests for social media and other platforms.
The scale of the All Blacks, now they have $200m of private equity banked within them, is different to what Robertson has been used to with the Crusaders and it’s quite the juggling act to cope with all the aspects the role demands.
Robertson has proven innovative and resourceful, and at his best when he’s under pressure. That’s why the All Blacks job excites him. But he needs to be aware the pressure that comes with the role he will be taking on is like nothing he has experienced.