Don Tricker has been announced as New Zealand Rugby’s new high performance director.<\/p>\n
Tricker, who has previously been involved with high-performance roles at the organisation – both full-time and as a consultant – will fill a newly-created role following the departure of Mike Anthony.<\/p>\n
Tricker will retain his position at the San Diego Padres Major League Baseball club, where he is vice-president of player health and performance. <\/p>\n
A NZ Rugby statement announced that Tricker would “provide leadership over New Zealand rugby\u2019s high performance system, including driving winning national teams, player pathways and coach development”.<\/p>\n
NZ Rugby Interim CEO Steve Lancaster said: “Don brings a track record of delivering success across elite high-performance environments and we look forward to the impact he will make. Don is highly-respected and has a deep understanding of elite coaching, player development and New Zealand rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis role has a singular focus on driving our national teams to consistently win. Don will lead a high performance system that is aligned from pathways through to our national teams, with a clear focus on driving a performance culture that reflects the unique identity of New Zealand rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tricker will join NZ Rugby in November after the MLB season. His role will include providing high-performance pathways for New Zealand’s junior teams, including the under-20s, currently in South Africa, plus the All Blacks and Black Ferns.<\/p>\n
A “transition plan” was in place that will see Tricker spend time in NZ Rugby\u2019s high performance system and national team environments throughout 2026.<\/p>\n
Tricker said: \u201cI\u2019m excited to return to New Zealand and to be involved with New Zealand Rugby. In particular, I\u2019m looking forward to working with two fantastic head coaches in Whitney [Hansen] and Dave [Rennie], our national team programmes and the NZR high performance team.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut simply, my role is about creating a system that develops players that our national teams want to select. To do that we need to be working in partnership with Provincial Unions and Super Rugby clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst I remain absolutely committed to the Padres, there are windows throughout the baseball season that will allow me to spend time with NZR staff and teams. This will be a period of discovery and understanding the here and now.\u201d <\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Middle East violence flares up again, and evacuations from a cruise ship struck by a deadly virus. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don Tricker has been announced as New Zealand Rugby’s new high performance director. Tricker, who has previously been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[10751,64,63,49604,760,85],"class_list":["post-649984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all-blacks","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-black-ferns","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649984","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=649984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}