Murray Mexted believes that Scott Robertson and the All Blacks will benefit from having one less coach in his backroom staff with Jason Holland departing.
It has not been an easy couple of years in charge for the head coach, who has overseen seven defeats during that time.
He has also had plenty of upheaval behind the scenes with attack guru Leon MacDonald exiting just a few games into this tenure.
Backs coach Holland has since followed him with his final match as part of the All Blacks set-up coming in the 52-26 victory over Wales.
While Scott Hansen has helped out with the attack, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Robertson bring another person in ahead of the 2026 Test campaign, but Mexted would be against that.
‘Razor can’t keep everyone happy’
“Too many cooks spoil the broth. How can a head coach, if he has seven assistant coaches, keep them all happy?” he told DSPN with Martin Devlin.
“The answer is that you can’t, even Razor, who’s the most personable guy you can get, and really appreciates and shows loyalty.
“Throughout his career he’s done that. He hasn’t been able to satisfy all those guys and that’s why they started leaving one by one.
“We don’t need them, number one, and number two they knew we didn’t need them. Number three, what I’m saying here is the buck’s got to stop with Razor and his two supporters, Ryan [and Hansen].”
All Blacks great slams New Zealand’s ‘bloody mess’ with Scott Robertson ‘fooling around’ in 2025
Poor performances and results will inevitably attract criticism with Hansen and Ryan also in the All Blacks fans’ firing line.
However, Mexted believes that the latter, who played a key role in their run to the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, is ultimately “just doing his business and no one’s concerned about that.”
It is Robertson, though, who many are focused on given his status at the top of the coaching ladder, but the 72-year-old has confidence in his ability to turn it around.
Razor the right man
“Razor’s the head coach and he’s got the gravitas and he’s got the right personality. Clearly the players like him, which I think is a really important thing,” he said.
“You just need to look back at the Crusaders and see that great winning combination that he developed.”
New Zealand won 10 of their 13 Tests, but those three defeats proved costly as they missed out on the Rugby Championship title and a northern hemisphere Grand Slam.
“When I read in British papers the All Blacks have lost their aura and nobody fears them anymore, that really upsets me,” Mexted added.
“We spent 100 years creating that aura and it does exist. There was an All Black aura that has been tarnished. It’s not gone but it means that they’ve got some work to do to get it back, in the next 12 months particularly.”