{"id":260894,"date":"2026-01-31T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/260894\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T11:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:20:11","slug":"the-constant-in-the-all-blacks-struggles-is-not-the-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/260894\/","title":{"rendered":"The constant in the All Blacks\u2019 struggles is not the coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s on the senior All Blacks<\/a> now.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not too bothered about who New Zealand<\/a> Rugby appoints as the next national coach, nor the criteria that\u2019s been set. I mean, preferring a New Zealander who\u2019s won some games and been in charge of a Test team is hardly a radical idea.<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s put up or shut up time for the stars of this side.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t like the rugby that\u2019s been played. You don\u2019t rate the coach or some of his staff. Maybe the captain wasn\u2019t the guy you would\u2019ve chosen to follow.<\/p>\n

Fine, just be careful what you wish for.<\/p>\n

We can debate the credentials of Jamie Joseph<\/a> and Dave Rennie till the cows come home. We can float the idea of a return to the fold for Ian Foster or Steve Hansen. Heck, let\u2019s throw names like Pat Lam<\/a> and Robbie Deans<\/a> into the mix.<\/p>\n

The reason I\u2019m relaxed about the identity of the bloke who eventually replaces Scott Robertson<\/a> as All Blacks coach is because they\u2019re largely an irrelevance.<\/p>\n

The playing personnel isn\u2019t going to change. The Barrett brothers, Ardie Savea<\/a>, Damien McKenzie, Codie Taylor<\/a> and Rieko Ioane<\/a> aren\u2019t all suddenly going to become surplus to requirements.<\/p>\n

New Zealand has the makings of an elite Test team. The fact that it isn\u2019t one is because of the players, not the coach.<\/p>\n

Of the players I mentioned, injury kept McKenzie from playing at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. The rest were there that year and again in 2023.<\/p>\n

Shall we reel off the losses to Argentina<\/a> that now appear to come on an annual basis? How about the drubbings from Ireland? South Africa<\/a> 43 New Zealand 10, anyone?<\/p>\n

Hansen was a superb front man, Foster a fine coach and less able statesman than his predecessor, while Robertson appears to have struggled with both the public and private parts of the role.<\/p>\n

But what do we \u2014 the millions of us that watch on from beyond the four walls of the All Blacks dressing room \u2014 judge these coaches on? Results, ultimately.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been inadequate for years now, regardless of who\u2019s been in charge.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to catalogue potential mistakes Robertson made. Just as it takes no effort to question the calibre of his support staff or to wonder aloud about what prompted Leon MacDonald<\/a> and Jason Holland to depart it.<\/p>\n

The constants here are the same senior pros and the same underwhelming results and performances.<\/p>\n

A new broom might sweep clean, but then I think we all assumed that ahead of Robertson\u2019s first series in charge, against England<\/a> in 2024. A new coach and coaches could invigorate the players, and we could see the team reach the potential we like to believe is still untapped.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that, beyond wholesale change to the squad, history suggests we\u2019re just going to get more of what we\u2019ve seen since the All Blacks\u2019 bubble was so emphatically burst by Ireland<\/a> in Chicago way back in 2016.<\/p>\n

The decline dates back that far and has been presided over by a select group of players for most of the years since.<\/p>\n

Well, they\u2019ve seen off Scott Robertson. Yes, he\u2019s gone, but they remain.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s on them now. They\u2019re the ones who obviously thought the model was broken, and it\u2019s up to them to fix it.<\/p>\n

Joseph, Rennie or whoever can don a suit and tie and talk into the microphone, but it\u2019s only the on-field actions of the players that count.<\/p>\n

The next head coach can say and do what he likes, but in the end, he\u2019s hostage to what the players produce on the paddock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s on the senior All Blacks now. I\u2019m not too bothered about who New Zealand Rugby appoints as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-260894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260894","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=260894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}