{"id":456684,"date":"2026-02-03T23:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456684\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T23:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:51:08","slug":"matatu-announce-blair-baxter-as-new-super-rugby-aupiki-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456684\/","title":{"rendered":"Matatu announce Blair Baxter as new Super Rugby Aupiki head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Super Rugby Aupiki franchise Matatu have announced their new head coach for the 2026 season, naming former head coach Blair Baxter as Whitney Hansen\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n<p>Baxter\u2019s second stint as head coach of Matatu will commence at the start of the 2026 season, following a couple of seasons as an assistant under Hansen.<\/p>\n<p>Hansen, who has been the team\u2019s director of rugby for the past few seasons, was appointed as the new Black Ferns head coach last year.<\/p>\n<p>Baxter was part of the China\u2019s Womens Sevens program as an assistant before coaching the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand-women\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a> U18 Girls to the Global Youth Sevens title in late 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The 45-year-old has recently been serving as Game Development Manager at Heartland Rugby club Mid Canterbury, showcasing his wide range of experience and skills in different roles.<\/p>\n<p>Matatu also acknowledged that under his leadership and coaching, they won the 2023 Super Rugby Aupiki competition, which to this day shapes the standards in the Lincoln-based franchise.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Munro, the General Manager of Matatu, says that Baxter\u2019s coaching appointment was made with the belief that he\u2019s the best person to lead the team into 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBlair has been part of our journey from the very beginning,\u201d Munro said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis deep understanding of our kaupapa, his genuine care for our athletes, and his proven ability to lead at the high-performance level make him the right person to guide us forward into 2026. This is an exciting step for our club.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super Rugby Aupiki franchise Matatu have announced their new head coach for the 2026 season, naming former head&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-456684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456684","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=456684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}