{"id":257754,"date":"2026-01-26T03:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/257754\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T03:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:23:08","slug":"new-all-blacks-coach-must-have-test-level-experience-new-zealand-rugby-says-only-kiwis-can-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/257754\/","title":{"rendered":"New All Blacks coach must have test-level experience New Zealand Rugby says. Only Kiwis can apply"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Associated Press<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The successful candidate who replaces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/scott-robertson-2-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Robertson<\/a> as All Blacks head coach will have to have coached already at test level, New Zealand Rugby has announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">Robertson was fired in January two years into his four-year contract after a damning internal report in the All Blacks&#8217; 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">New Zealand Rugby chairman David Kirk, former All Black Keven Mealamu, former NZR head of high performance Don Tricker, acting NZR chief executive Steve Lancaster and another former All Black yet to be named will make up the panel that chooses the next coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">Kirk, Mealamu and Tricker participated in the review which led to Robertson&#8217;s removal and Kirk and Mealamu interviewed current players who are said to have been critical of Robertson&#8217;s methods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">Former Japan coach Jamie Joseph, who coached the Dunedin-based Highlanders, former Wallabies coach Dave Rennie, who coached the Hamilton-based Chiefs and Auckland Blues coach Vern Cotter, who has coached Scotland and Fiji, would meet the stipulation of having coached at test level. Only New Zealanders can apply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">Current Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has ruled himself out of consideration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">\u201cThe All Blacks head coach is an incredibly important appointment,\u201d Lancaster said. \u201cWe\u2019ve started the process and are giving it the care and urgency it deserves to set the team up for success. We\u2019ll provide further updates as soon as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-746446fd=\"\">AP rugby: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/rugby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The successful candidate who replaces Scott Robertson as All Blacks head&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-257754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}