With Scott Robertson on notice with the All Blacks, New Zealand Rugby should be considering the impact that Bristol Bears boss Pat Lam could make.<\/p>\n
Why Pat Lam should be the next All Blacks coach<\/p>\n
When the All Blacks<\/a> stumbled through their November<\/a> tour of Europe, conceding late tries to sides they should have put away comfortably and looking less like the most feared rugby team on earth and more like a collection of individually brilliant players who\u2019d forgotten how to think collectively, it became impossible to ignore that New Zealand rugby wasn\u2019t just experiencing a rough patch, but had fundamentally disconnected from the very principles that made it untouchable in the first place.<\/p>\n New Zealand rugby works best when it trusts its instincts, when players are given responsibility rather than instruction, when skill is prioritised over control, and when the game belongs to the people on the field rather than the people in the box. The coach who fits that reality is Lam<\/a>, and this is not about novelty or disruption but about fit, because Lam\u2019s rugby is recognisably New Zealand rugby; educated in the domestic system, shaped by Samoan collectivism, then hardened by years of coaching without safety nets.<\/p>\n As of January 2026, New Zealand Rugby is deep into self-examination following a formal end-of-season review that Robertson<\/a> himself labelled \u201can interrogation, right from the top to the bottom,\u201d which tells you everything about how badly things had gone. On paper, 2025 delivered a respectable record: 13 Tests, 10 wins, a win percentage hovering in the mid-70s. In reality, it masked a season defined by inconsistency, defensive leaks, discipline issues, attacking sequences that stalled under pressure, losses that arrived suddenly and heavily, including second-half collapses against direct rivals.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what watching the All Blacks in 2025 felt like; you knew the ingredients were there, you could see flashes of genuine brilliance, and then suddenly they\u2019d ship three tries in 12 minutes whilst you sat there convinced that someone had left the actual game plan in a taxi and replaced it with instructions written in crayon by a bloke who\u2019d once watched a YouTube compilation of defensive errors but had never actually played rugby.<\/p>\n Robertson remains in post, but he is on notice. The 2026 schedule is unforgiving with 13 Tests, South Africa away, the Nations Championship, and no margin for drift. This is the context in which succession and long-term direction are being discussed, even if current speculation focuses on internal adjustments or assistants like Tony Brown, who\u2019s now committed to South Africa.<\/p>\n Scott Robertson palming off selection concerns as All Blacks players \u2018told\u2019 to speak to assistants in surprise revelation<\/a><\/p>\n The coach who gets it<\/p>\n Lam builds teams that think for themselves, an almost heretic quality in modern rugby. Before anyone starts bleating about him being an outsider or not understanding the All Blacks DNA, let\u2019s be absolutely clear; Lam was born in Auckland, played for Samoa because that\u2019s where his heritage sits and because New Zealand didn\u2019t cap him despite bringing him into the squad, and then came back to play provincial rugby in New Zealand, so technically he\u2019s a Kiwi who\u2019s lived the entirety of New Zealand rugby from the inside whilst also understanding what it means to represent Pacific Island rugby at the highest level.<\/p>\n His track record speaks for itself. At Connacht in 2016, Lam took a side with the smallest budget in the PRO12, playing in a shed in Galway, and won the entire competition against Leinster, Munster, and Glasgow, sides with three times the resources. That wasn\u2019t luck; it was systematic development of players who understood their roles so deeply they could execute under any pressure. At Bristol<\/a>, he\u2019s built a side that competes consistently in the Prem despite operating on a budget that would make the big spenders laugh, producing rugby that\u2019s watchable, effective, and built on exactly the principles New Zealand claims to value but has increasingly abandoned.<\/p>\n The counter-argument writes itself; Lam\u2019s been out of New Zealand for years, he\u2019s never coached at international level, he turned down Wales in 2025, which suggests he\u2019s comfortable at Bristol, where he\u2019s contracted long-term, and the pressure of coaching the All Blacks is exponentially greater than anything he\u2019s faced. All fair points. But the first two cut both ways because his time away has given him perspective without losing the fundamentals, and international inexperience didn\u2019t stop plenty of successful coaches, including Graham Henry, who\u2019d only coached Wales before taking the All Blacks job. As for staying at Bristol, that\u2019s called loyalty and finishing what you started.<\/p>\n Ironically, for a side that normally drips in team culture and self-policing, the All Blacks\u2019 recent struggles have not been about talent but about their own identity; what matters, who decides, where responsibility sits when momentum turns. Lam\u2019s teams answer those questions because he trusts players with clear roles and explicit expectations, and once the match begins decision-making belongs to them and them alone. New Zealand\u2019s greatest sides functioned exactly this way, with leadership moving laterally, standards enforced within the group, and coaches setting the environment and staying out of the way once it was built.<\/p>\n France v British and Irish Lions before All Blacks tour \u2018confirmed\u2019 but there\u2019s a reason not to get \u2018too excited\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Underlying philosophy<\/p>\n Lam\u2019s rugby is built on understanding of space and ball use rather than robotic execution of patterns, where players are expected to read the game in real time and make decisions based on what they see rather than what they\u2019ve been told to do, which sounds obvious until you realise how many modern coaches have abandoned this in favour of systems that treat players like chess pieces being moved around a board by someone in the coaching box with a laptop and a headset.<\/p>\n Skilled players who understand why they\u2019re doing something will always outperform skilled players who are simply following instructions, and that\u2019s precisely why Lam teaches the principles behind the patterns so players can adapt when the pattern breaks down. In a game as chaotic and fluid as rugby that adaptability is everything, because no amount of rehearsal can prepare you for the infinite variables that emerge when 15 opposition players are actively trying to disrupt your plans.<\/p>\n The high-tempo handling game that Lam coaches is all about manipulating defensive structures through speed of thought and speed of execution, where the ball moves faster than the defence can reorganise, support runners arrive in waves because they\u2019ve read the play early, and offloads happen because players trust that someone will be there rather than because someone definitely will be there.<\/p>\n That sounds like chaos, but it is actually deeply intelligent rugby because it forces defenders to make decisions under pressure, and every decision a defender makes is an opportunity for the attack to exploit. The tempo is underpinned by fitness, but more so, it\u2019s about overloading the opposition where they\u2019re always reacting rather than anticipating, always catching up rather than getting set, and eventually the cracks appear because human beings can only process information at a certain speed.<\/p>\n This comes from Lam\u2019s understanding that Pacific Island rugby has always been about expression within structure, where the structure provides the foundation but the expression provides the edge. The greatest New Zealand sides have always operated in this space where everyone knew the framework, but individuals were trusted to bring their own brilliance within it.<\/p>\n You had Christian Cullen running angles nobody had taught him because he saw space where others saw defenders, you had Tana Umaga offloading in contact because he knew someone would be there even if he couldn\u2019t see them yet, you had Richie McCaw arriving at breakdowns from impossible angles because he\u2019d read the play three phases earlier, and none of that came from a playbook, but from players who understood the game so deeply that they could see it unfolding before it happened.<\/p>\n Ex-All Blacks coach produces \u2018worst losing sequence\u2019 in a decade, World Cup-winners struggle while Springbok and Wallaby continue rampage<\/a><\/p>\n The cultural thread<\/p>\n New Zealand rugby\u2019s most dominant recent eras have always coincided with strong Pacific Island influence, not just in numbers but in how the game is approached: collective responsibility, emotional investment, playing for each other rather than for systems. Lam carries that naturally because he lives that culture himself with one of his size 11 boots in each camp, so for M\u0101ori and Pasifika players, his presence would not be symbolic, but more so familiar, a kinsman, someone who fully understands it all.<\/p>\n The Samoan\/Kiwi rugby that shaped Lam is about understanding your role within the collective, whilst being trusted to execute that role in your own way, where structure exists to create opportunity rather than to limit possibility. When Lam coaches high-tempo handling rugby, he\u2019s not imposing a foreign system but drawing on something deeply embedded in Pacific rugby culture, and the fact that he was born in New Zealand, came through New Zealand rugby, but represented Samoa internationally, means he understands both worlds.<\/p>\n That is precisely what the All Blacks need right now because the team is overwhelmingly M\u0101ori and Pasifika in composition, but the coaching has increasingly become disconnected from the cultural values that those players bring with them.<\/p>\n Lam has never coached with entitlement, having rebuilt squads, replaced leaders, and operated in competitions where reputation offers no protection, which matters greatly, because New Zealand rugby is adjusting to a world where history no longer guarantees dominance.<\/p>\n Lam\u2019s career has been built on adaptation rather than inheritance, so his teams can adapt to whatever the game throws at them because they understand the game deeply, rather than knowing one way to play it well.<\/p>\n Cheslin Kolbe\u2019s gamble proves costly after Sam Cane\u2019s \u2018stupid\u2019 red card in defeat to Ardie Savea\u2019s Kobe<\/a><\/p>\n What comes next<\/p>\n The All Blacks don\u2019t really need any form of reinvention as we know just what they\u2019ve achieved and what they represent; what they really need is their culture and tactics back in sync. Lam delivers that because his rugby philosophy looks like New Zealand rugby when it is confident rather than anxious.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t speculation about what\u2019s happening now because Lam is contracted long-term at Bristol, he\u2019s focused there, and current All Blacks succession talk centres elsewhere, but if New Zealand Rugby is serious about long-term direction rather than short-term fixes, if they genuinely want a coach who understands who they are, how they play, and why they succeed, then the answer is already visible because he is coaching it now. More importantly, he\u2019s coaching the kind of rugby that New Zealand should never have stopped playing; high-tempo, high-skill, high-intelligence rugby where players are trusted to make decisions, where understanding matters more than compliance, and where the ball is moved with purpose and precision because everyone on the field knows not just what they\u2019re doing but why they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n Which is exactly the All Black way.<\/p>\n Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n