{"id":303551,"date":"2026-02-26T17:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/303551\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:56:16","slug":"magpies-coach-brock-james-called-on-to-hone-attack-of-nzs-best-up-and-comers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/303551\/","title":{"rendered":"Magpies coach Brock James called on to hone attack of NZ\u2019s best up-and-comers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It will be followed by the Rugby Championship U20 tournament in South Africa in April, and the Junior World Championship in Georgia from June 27-July 18, ending less than a fortnight before the expected July 30 start of the 50th anniversary NPC.<\/p>\n

New Zealand won six of the first 10 annual Junior World Cup tournaments, with regular Hawke\u2019s Bay player representation, but hasn\u2019t won the title since 2017, and did not reach the final again until last year.<\/p>\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay Rugby CEO Jay Campbell said: \u201cThe Magpies\u2019 attack was outstanding last year, as Brock<\/a> has continued to evolve our attack, and this appointment is great reward for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an exciting opportunity for Brock to coach at the international level but also to hone his attack coaching and to bring that back to the Magpies,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know he and our coaching team and players are desperate to go one better [than the 2023 beaten finalist outcome] in this year\u2019s NPC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell said Sam McNicol, whose 32 first-class matches at wing or centre in an injury-disrupted career included eight for the Magpies, but 20 in Super Rugby, will be the Magpies\u2019 acting head coach in James\u2019 absence, to the end of the pre-season preparation.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam McNicol in his days playing for the Hawke’s Bay Magpies. He takes over as acting head coach for the pre-season campaign this year as appointed head coach Brock James becomes an assistant coach with the New Zealand Under 20 side. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

McNicol is coaching with Hurricanes Development side the Hunters. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt 30, Sam is already an experienced coach with a huge future in front of him,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cThis provides him with another challenge on his coaching journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier, with more than 40 years\u2019 experience covering news and sports events and issues in Hawke\u2019s Bay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will be followed by the Rugby Championship U20 tournament in South Africa in April, and the Junior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[89,3390,166310,1559,1320,15977,14054,9612,111,139,69,3272,1118,90,213,61,166311],"class_list":{"0":"post-303551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-attack","9":"tag-best","10":"tag-brock","11":"tag-called","12":"tag-coach","13":"tag-hone","14":"tag-james","15":"tag-magpies","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-nzs","20":"tag-of","21":"tag-on","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-to","24":"tag-upandcomers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303551","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=303551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}