{"id":332590,"date":"2026-03-16T17:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/332590\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T17:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:27:13","slug":"justin-marshall-reacts-to-tana-umagas-possible-all-blacks-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/332590\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Marshall reacts to Tana Umaga’s possible All Blacks role"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former All Black halfback Justin Marshall<\/a> has weighed in on the possible role with the All Blacks<\/a> for his former teammate, and current Moana Pasifika<\/a> head coach, Tana Umaga.<\/p>\n

Umaga responded to reports on Sunday evening at Eden Park, after rumours circulated about a possible role as one of Dave Rennie\u2019s assistant coaches.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old Moana Pasifika head coach told The Breakdown on Sunday evening that he has indeed been approached by New Zealand<\/a> Rugby and Rennie, but those conversations are still ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been approached,\u201d he said on\u00a0The Breakdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of chats to Dave Rennie in the last couple of days. We\u2019re just going through that process at the moment and we\u2019ll see where that goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a job to do here at the moment. That\u2019s great, to have that opportunity. Whether it comes to anything, that\u2019s work that\u2019s got to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reacting to Umaga\u2019s quotes, former All Black teammate Marshall said that the most important part of these conversations is where he exactly fits in the puzzle.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike he said, there\u2019s quite a few things to work through, and there\u2019s things that you need to work through to make sure that the fits right. Conversations are conversations, but there\u2019s got to be an agreement about where do I sit in the picture here?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I take control of? I am actually a head coach here, so you\u2019ve got to work all those things out, and they\u2019ve got to do their due diligence, man, because it\u2019s been off recently within the coaching structure and we\u2019ve seen assistants leaving, so they\u2019ve got to get this right.<\/p>\n

\u201cFantastic, you have a guy like that walking into the changing shed who\u2019 been in there and been All Black captain before. When he finds his role, that\u2019s going to bring something special to it because having a guy like that walking in there and inspiring the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 81-Test former All Black halfback wants New Zealand Rugby to make sure that the assistant coaches will work in the environment, especially with what played out under the last regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to say is you can\u2019t just put somebody in there because they\u2019ve got the respect and they\u2019ve done some coaching like Tana. You\u2019ve got to make sure that the fit works and that when he is in that environment, that one of the things that people have said a lot about is too many people, too many voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many chiefs and not enough Indians. So you put too much personnel in there, you\u2019re going straight back to having all those voices that the players are getting frustrated with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former All Black centurion Mils Muliaina<\/a> agrees with Marshall, saying that there\u2019s no doubt he will have the respect of the players; it\u2019s just about what role he will play in the coaching staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think it\u2019s working out what his actual role is. No question about whether he walks into the change room, the respect he\u2019s going to have. He was very instrumental when he became captain, in terms of, you hear what they\u2019ve really said, the culture, that\u2019s the one thing he wants to really dig deep into.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know he\u2019s been a defensive coach, he\u2019s also been a head coach. He\u2019s also come back from having a break and then going back to the Blues, just with consultancy, right? And so they\u2019ll be trying to establish what\u2019s his actual role is and what will he do? Because there\u2019s other guys as well that will come in behind Dave Rennie as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sport Nation\u2019s\u00a0Alex Chapman and 1News\u2019 Scotty Stevenson first reported that Umaga was in talks with the new All Blacks head coach, but nothing was confirmed by either party about what role, or if these talks had taken place.<\/p>\n

Last week, Umaga called the rumours \u201cspeculation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really deal in speculation. I\u2019m really honoured and privileged to be involved in the conversation. But it\u2019s just that. I suppose it was my turn this week. I saw there\u2019s a lot of names involved in who Rens is looking for,\u201d Umaga told reporters in Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family are the ones that are letting me know what\u2019s happening, and I\u2019m getting a lot of these texts, so I had to turn my phone off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Black halfback Justin Marshall has weighed in on the possible role with the All Blacks for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-332590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332590","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=332590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}