{"id":166203,"date":"2025-12-03T15:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/166203\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:08:10","slug":"everyone-knows-robertson-is-not-supposed-to-be-doing-the-coaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/166203\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyone knows Robertson is not supposed to be doing the coaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I remember first coming across Scott Robertson<\/a> as a coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a fine playing career that included 23 tests for the All Blacks<\/a>, Robertson was looking for a way to stay in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019d started coaching Sumner in the second tier of Canterbury<\/a> club rugby, which not many players of his ilk are inclined to do. It\u2019s professional footy where they long to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus gives an insight into his plans for 2026, a year that will see his team face mostly Tier One opposition<\/p>\n

\"VideoSpringbok coach Rassie Erasmus gives an insight into his plans for 2026, a year that will see his team face mostly Tier One opposition<\/p>\n

Robertson\u2019s break came when Rob Penney gave him a part-time job with Canterbury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Penney and his full-time staff ran training, Robertson could be seen over on the far side of Rugby Park. He\u2019d be on his knees in the sand pit, tackling and being tackled by a player whose technique needed a bit of work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sand might\u2019ve been taking a bit of skin off Robertson\u2019s knees, nose, elbows and ears, but his smile was usually a mile wide. He was in his happy place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are people honestly suggesting that Robertson should be doing the same now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I know the All Blacks haven\u2019t been that good since he took over as head coach. I\u2019m the first to suggest the team shows minimal signs of improvement, which can easily be attributed to poor coaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only none of us know. Those travelling media who are allowed into training once a week see next to nothing, while anyone else expressing an opinion from afar is just guessing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far easier to say the coaching\u2019s crap than start bagging whole swathes of players. Never mind that they play the games and drop the high balls and miss the tackles, it\u2019s the head coach that\u2019s surely to blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, but this isn\u2019t the 1990s when Laurie Mains coached the forwards and Earle Kirton looked after the backs. Back then the team had a manager, a physio, doctor, luggage man and that was about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019m aware, a huge number of New Zealand<\/a> Rugby (NZR) staff accompanied the All Blacks to Chicago recently, not least because the governing body hosted a leadership conference while the team was there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even on a non-junket week, the All Blacks carry an enormous support staff with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m the last person to give Robertson a pass for the team\u2019s performances, but the idea that he \u2013 or anyone with his title \u2013 actually coaches the All Blacks is laughable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a management position, where the details are delegated to others.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019re liaising with players, coaches, analysts, health and wellbeing folk, trainers, logistics people, media handlers. You\u2019re not in the sand pit teaching people how to tackle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe the job\u2019s too big for Robertson, as it appeared to be for Ian Foster. Steve Hansen seemed to handle it well, but we all have to remember the All Blacks head coach is running a business here rather than a rugby team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If, as we\u2019ve been led to believe, Scott Hansen is the man doing the type of job Mains once did, all I\u2019ll say is he didn\u2019t appoint himself. Roberston must have faith in him, just as NZR will have had to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This model, where the head coach oversees the show, is hardly new.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Think back to Wayne Smith, who found being the man in charge a burden too great to deal with. In his second coming as an All Blacks assistant, Smith was able to coach the team unencumbered by all the peripheral responsibilities and pressures of being the focal point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where Robertson perhaps hasn\u2019t done well, is in choosing those responsible for the actual coaching. Regardless of whether Leon MacDonald<\/a> and Jason Holland found they couldn\u2019t work for Robertson \u2013 or Scott Hansen for that matter \u2013 the optics of their departures looked poor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just as the team\u2019s performances often have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In order to be able to host conferences in Chicago and lecture people on how special the All Blacks are, NZR has to have something to leverage off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That means winning \u2013 and winning well \u2013 and the whole model comes crashing down when that doesn\u2019t happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If we accept the proposition that physically teaching players how to play rugby is the least of the head coach\u2019s responsibilities, then it\u2019s up to the governing body to ensure the true coach or coaches are up to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robertson and NZR have a vested interest in the lead assistant coach succeeding. Only, from this distance, Scott Hansen\u2019s no Wayne Smith or even Ian Foster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When NZR comes to review the All Blacks\u2019 season, perhaps that\u2019s where they should start.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I remember first coming across Scott Robertson as a coach.\u00a0 After a fine playing career that included 23…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-166203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}