With a host of All Blacks greats leaving the international stage since the 2023 Rugby World Cup, New Zealand are still in a state of transition under Robertson.<\/p>\n
While there have been some stirring wins, such as over South Africa at Eden Park to maintain their unbeaten run in Auckland, a record defeat by the Springboks a week later and two losses to Argentina on Robertson’s watch have muted the enthusiasm of the New Zealand rugby public.<\/p>\n
“In its entirety we’ve had some great results and we’ve fought back from some great adversity,” Robertson explains.<\/p>\n
“We’ve played some really good footy and exposed 20 debutants over the past two years. We’ve got a lot of guys who have stepped up and we feel we have a good foundation.”<\/p>\n
But while it is not a vintage All Blacks side yet, they are still ranked number two in the world and boast a handful of superstars, from backrowers Ardie Savea and Wallace Sititi to generational players like Beauden Barrett and Will Jordan behind the scrum.<\/p>\n
And according to Robertson, the group is determined to make the most of a rare chance to play all four home nations in consecutive weekends.<\/p>\n
“It just keeps giving,” Robertson says about the end-of-year tour.<\/p>\n
“You have 13 Test matches in a year, and every week [is huge]. You beat the All Blacks and you’ve had a great year. So every team [wants the scalp].<\/p>\n
“So you have got to embrace it. How do you take all that expectation and turn it into joy? That’s the art of coaching.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a host of All Blacks greats leaving the international stage since the 2023 Rugby World Cup, New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-259476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}