Jason Holland has opened up on his decision to quit his coaching role with the All Blacks and how he felt when Scott Robertson was fired as the men in black’s head coach.
Holland served as an All Blacks assistant coach in 2024 and 2025 under the guidance of former boss Robertson, who was axed from his position.
Prior to Robertson’s dismissal, Holland concluded his involvement with the All Blacks after opting not to extend his contract beyond last year’s November internationals.
The 53-year-old, who previously worked as an assistant coach for the Hurricanes from 2016 to 2019 and then head coach from 2020 to 2023, returned to his old club to work as one of current Hurricanes boss Clark Laidlaw’s assistants.
Holland revealed in an interview with the What a Lad podcast that although being part of the All Blacks coaching staff was “awesome”, he battled to adapt to the rigours of international coaching, especially during the early stages of that job.
“What an opportunity. It was awesome. The All Blacks. So, my roles were in the strike stuff, pretty much. Initially with Rang (Leon MacDonald) and then with Scotty (Hansen),” he said.
‘I don’t feel I coached as well as I could in first six months’
“I feel like through nobody’s fault but my own, I just feel like I just went away from a little of the couple of things that I enjoy and that I’m good at, and nothing really obvious, but I just don’t feel I coached as well as I could in that first six months.”
The show’s host, former Hurricanes and All Blacks sevens representative James Marshall asked Holland if it was difficult to adapt from being a head coach with the Wellington-based franchise to an assistant coach with New Zealand’s senior national team and he replied: “I don’t think so. I think you just got to get excited about what your role is.
“So I didn’t feel that. It’s interesting, you’ve got to make sure you’re having fun with whatever you’re doing and through my own fault, it’s easy to go into a hotel room on a Thursday night and do that for five or six months on tour, you know?
“And what we got good at for the second year in there is that we got better at switching off. Myself and Scotty and Tams (Tamati Ellison) especially when we’d make sure we got out, we had a bit of fun and we just relaxed for a little bit.
“So I think that’s the most important because you’re so determined to do well and you just work hard.
“You know what I mean? And then you maybe lose a little bit of the fun that you have in you and the ability to switch off.
“So that’s, all the stuff around how we went, I thought there was some really good performances. If we’d beaten South Africa over there in that first year when we let that slip.
“But look, it is what it is and again, you reflect, but I got massive time for the boys that I coached with.”
Marshall said it sounded like he was trying too hard in his role and Holland agreed.
“It can be. You’re obviously going to work, we’re talking to Scotty and Tams and Jase Ryan and Ray (Robertson), everyone works so hard that we are determined to do well,” he explained.
“The bit that I’ve talked about is, I’ll be awesome tomorrow if I go and have a quiet beer with Scotty tonight. And I don’t open the computer tonight.
“It’s a balance and if you ask my wife, it’s all pretty shattered. But it is important to understand when you’re going to be at your best.”
After being in the All Blacks set-up for two international seasons, Holland decided to resign from his position – a decision which he admitted was far from easy.
“(It was) Really tough. And it wasn’t a massive blow-up. It’s not as if we had massive blowers. It was just that, I just wanted to make sure that I knew how to enjoy myself and coach and be at my best.
‘It was a big call’
“I think it’s probably more the way I approach things that I thought someone else is better off in this environment to make sure that I get myself in the space where I knew I could coach well. So, it was a big call.
“But sometimes when you get a bit older, as you say, you reflect, you figure out, ‘Man, this is where I can have fun and be good’.”
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
And a couple months after resigning from his position, Robertson was fired as All Blacks head coach – a decision which caught Holland by surprise.
“I didn’t know. And even up until a couple of days before it happened, I didn’t think that that would be what would happen,” he said. “As I say, it’s part of the job.
“But I feel for Ray. I feel for the assistant coaches as well. We talked around families earlier, and it’s not just an impact on them, is it? It’s like, ‘Where are we going to live now, and are we moving? And what’s my next gig?’
“But as I say, that’s part of what we sign up for. But it doesn’t stop you feeling sorry for people when that happens.”
READ MORE: Hurricanes boss defends Cam Roigard decision amid All Blacks legend’s ‘filthy’ claim