Rugby public not sold
It hasn’t taken long for continuity to become a bad word with specific regard to who might be the next All Blacks coach. For the first 10 years of professionalism, there was this ruthless cycle of ditching coaches and their wider management teams after failed World Cups.
It was slash and burn stuff — anyone associated with failure was razed and never seen again.
After the failed World Cup of 2007, New Zealand Rugby decided to take a massive risk — or at least they braced themselves for what was an ugly public backlash by re-appointing the incumbent coaching team of Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen.
It was a big, big moment in the history of New Zealand rugby as, not only did it ultimately usher in the most successful decade any rugby team has ever known, it broke the shackles of the shortterm thinking and reactive decision-making that had been holding the All Blacks prisoner to World Cup failure.
Henry and his coaching team, under the most intense pressure between 2008 and 2011, justified their re-appointment when the All Blacks won the World Cup in 2011 and that paved the way for Hansen to take over as head coach.
Continuity, having previously never been in NZR’s thinking, was suddenly the only way they wanted to go.
But the mood seems to be turning against that continuity. Some of the resistance is focused on the general principle.
If the All Blacks continue to promote from within, it can appear to be a closed shop. There is the possibility that the All Blacks will forever be cast in the same mould — the new coach destined to be perennially overly influenced by, and wedded to, the ideas of his predecessor.
If there is another internal succession in 2020, will that be one too many and create the perception that continuity is not only the preferred All Blacks’ way but the only way?
More specifically, there isn’t nationwide faith or confidence in current All Blacks assistant Ian Foster.
He will, it seems, be forever judged by his seven-year tenure at the Chiefs that wasn’t a roaring success.