{"id":294835,"date":"2025-11-19T12:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294835\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:38:11","slug":"carlos-spencer-fears-for-the-future-of-the-game-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294835\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Spencer fears for the future of the game in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Carlos Spencer is currently living and coaching on the other side of the world at Terenure College RFC in Dublin, but through his son, Blues<\/a> player Payton, he still has a keen interest in the game back home in New Zealand. And what he hears and reads worries him.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in the small town of Levin, Spencer started running around with a rugby ball, like most Kiwi kids did back in the day, at a very young age. However, the mercurial former All Blacks<\/a> fly-half, nicknamed \u2018King Carlos\u2019, reckons that the same love of rugby is not present amongst today\u2019s youth in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrassroots is struggling big time in New Zealand<\/a> at the moment,\u201d he says in the latest issue of The Rugby Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of clubs had eight or nine teams back in the day, now they struggle to get four out. Not a lot of kids are growing up playing rugby now, or wanting to play rugby; there\u2019s other sports that are of more interest to them, like football and basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo back twenty or thirty years, the fastest-growing sport was rugby. It\u2019s not anymore, you know? It\u2019s basketball, it\u2019s football, rugby is probably about the third in New Zealand. The rise of Steven Adams (centre for Houston Rockets in the NBA), he\u2019s the big draw card, he\u2019s got big clinics in New Zealand right now. Some people are picking basketball over first fifteen rugby, that would have been unheard of in my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the notion that every child grows up wanting to be an All Black isn\u2019t as true as it used to be? \u201cNot anymore \u2013 it was like that when I was growing up. There are other avenues in professional sport where they can make money now, right? A lot of parents now are worried about their kid\u2019s safety,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it can [get back to what it was], it\u2019s not a quick fix. New Zealand Rugby have a few challenges ahead of them, but they\u2019re not stupid, they know that. It\u2019s no secret, but that\u2019s the good thing about New Zealand, we\u2019re such a small nation but we\u2019ll always have natural gifted rugby players.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CarlosDublin , Ireland \u2013 27 September 2025; Terenure College RFC head coach Carlos Spencer<\/a> before the Energia All-Ireland<\/a> League Division 1A match between UCD and Terenure College RFC at UCD Bowl in Dublin. (Photo By Piaras \u00d3 M\u00eddheach\/Sportsfile via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Being one of the game\u2019s greatest entertainers, Spencer would have inspired a fair few youngsters to have picked up an oval ball himself, during his time with the All Blacks, Blues and Auckland.<\/p>\n

But after a career spanning 35 Tests and 291 points for New Zealand; four National Provincial Championships and 492 points for Auckland; and three Super Rugby titles and 620 points for Blues, his focus turned to coaching.<\/p>\n

Spells at the Sharks<\/a> and the Kings<\/a> in South Africa<\/a> were followed by two years in Japan<\/a> with the Munakata Sanix Blues. In 2015, he returned to New Zealand where he took up assistant roles with the Hurricanes, Blues women and the Black Ferns XV, via a short American adventure with NOLA Gold<\/a> in the MLR.<\/p>\n

So how did he end up at a grassroots club in Ireland?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came through chatting with a business partner,\u201d Spencer revealed. \u201cI don\u2019t know how we got onto it, but he mentioned something about coaching Terenure and I think we were just joking. And then I came back and had a conversation and thought, okay, if they can make a few things work, then that might be able to happen. Five months later, and we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the draw of a head coach role that convinced the 50-year-old this was the job for him. \u201cI\u2019ve always been happy being an assistant coach, I just didn\u2019t really feel like I wanted the stress of being a head coach,\u201d he said. \u201cThe difference around this role is that it\u2019s not as demanding as a professional environment, so I thought it would be good for me to get a bit more exposure to that role. I\u2019ve been down the head coach route before [for a season with the Kings in South Africa, winning just one of his ten games], I know how challenging it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just really excited about the next few years, being back in grassroots again and just trying to put my stamp on the club.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Spencer is currently living and coaching on the other side of the world at Terenure College RFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-294835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}