{"id":556331,"date":"2026-03-22T04:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T04:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556331\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T04:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T04:57:13","slug":"super-rugby-pacific-jason-holland-on-why-he-wanted-blues-head-coaching-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556331\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Rugby Pacific: Jason Holland on why he wanted Blues head coaching role"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 53-year-old was quickly snapped up by the Hurricanes<\/a> for the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season, but when the Blues came knocking about their vacant role, Holland said the desire to be a head coach again was an opportunity he couldn\u2019t pass up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny conversations I\u2019ve had with the people in the Blues is a clear potential to continue to build on the great stuff that\u2019s been going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see so much potential with the people there, with the players, with the management, and the opportunity there to try and play some footy and win some games and excite the people around the Auckland region and the Northland region, the Blues region, is pretty exciting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Herald understands Holland was one of three candidates highlighted by the Blues<\/a> once Cotter announced his departure.<\/p>\n

Dave Rennie rebuffed the Blues\u2019 initial approach before contesting the coveted All Blacks job alongside Jamie Joseph, which Rennie ended up getting through till the 2027 Rugby World Cup<\/a>. In the weeks that followed, discussions with Ian Foster did not progress and Holland rapidly emerged as Cotter\u2019s successor in waiting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Holland said he still wants to remain invested when it comes to organising the attack, but his motivation to succeed in the role is far greater.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy the attack role … but you learn things along the way, don\u2019t you? You understand more and more around people and how you get the best out of people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping people to be at their best is a massive part of what I do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still want to be fully invested in how you play the game, but I\u2019m pretty excited about trying to help other people be at their best. I see that as a big part of being a head coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next few months will present a juggling act of sorts before he commits fully to the role later this year.<\/p>\n

The Blues\u2019 style under Cotter is built around forward dominance and physicality, and Holland has no intentions of tearing that down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure the good work that Vern\u2019s installed … around set piece and physicality is still a big part of how the Blues play,\u201d Holland said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve got a real drive to build skillsets and make sure you can play both ways \u2013 be direct, but also play to width when it\u2019s on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes and the Blues occupy the top two spots in the Super standings through six rounds, but the former sit top with a better points differential, while they have also played one less game.<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 53-year-old was quickly snapped up by the Hurricanes for the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season, but when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[229595,10964,64,63,3925,3181,13284,38019,1644,1642,29253,37313,10569,25101,1919,2652,39917,8936,10956,3206,760,85,1643,10965,38029,185045,16363,1547],"class_list":["post-556331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-admits","tag-assistant","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blues","tag-coach","tag-coaching","tag-down","tag-good","tag-he","tag-head","tag-holland","tag-hurricanes","tag-jason","tag-next","tag-on","tag-opportunity","tag-over","tag-pacific","tag-role","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-take","tag-turn","tag-wanted","tag-why","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556331","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=556331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}