Tony Brown opens up: Why I turned down the All Blacks to stay on with Japan
And, as Brown told his old Highlanders and All Blacks team-mate Jeff Wilson on Sky’s ‘The Pod’ interview series on Thursday night (8pm, Sky Sport Select), that reason essentially came down to unfinished business with Jamie Joseph in Japan.
Brown was a man in demand after the 2019 World Cup, where he and Joseph cajoled Japan to an historic and exhilarating run to the quarterfinals in front of their adoring home fans.
Ian Foster and Scott Robertson were evidently both keen on him to be part of their All Blacks coaching groups, and of course Joseph wanted him back with Japan. Others, too, by now were well aware of the attack guru’s special qualities.
But the All Blacks knock resounded loudest. Brown, a gritty competitor, played 18 tests for his country between 1999 and 2001 and would have featured in a lot more, but for the presence of the generational Andrew Mehrtens and Carlos Spencer ahead of him on the pecking order.
But it’s as a coach he has revealed himself a world-class competitor, first with Otago and the Highlanders (where he established that Yin and Yang partnership with Joseph) and then with Japan, where he ended his playing days.
Brown told Wilson his gut instinct persuaded him to continue this thing he has started with Joseph in Japan – a commitment that allows him to continue an association with his cherished Highlanders. He is strongly tipped to be promoted for a second stint as head coach in 2021 after the recent axing of Aaron Mauger.
“It would have been amazing to be involved with the All Blacks,” Brown told Wilson during their hour-long chat. “What stands out for me around being important is the environment you’re coaching in and the challenge of coaching the game of rugby. That’s why I do it.
“I just felt the environment we’ve created with Japan, and where we’re going, is everything I love about coaching. Then with Japan not being one of the best teams in the world, but potentially if we get it right we can really do some amazing things on the international stage, when I was talking it through with Jamie, those two things stood out for me in why I didn’t take on the All Blacks job.”
During an entertaining exchange with Wilson, Brown spoke about the dramatic incident in Japan in 2008 near the end of his playing career when he ruptured his pancreas (in a hit from fellow Kiwi Luke Thompson) and was left fearing for his life in a country hospital.
“As soon as they found out it was my pancreas, that becomes life-threatening, and they had to get my wife in. It’s after midnight at this stage, they’re telling her it’s 50-50, I’m in this country hospital where they’re having to operate straight away, then the operation doesn’t go well, so she starts to panic.
“They have to transfer me in another ambulance to another hospital, where the specialist is going to try fix up the job and save my life. Luckily enough he did it.”
And, of course, returned to play in that season’s final with the Sanyo team he was player-coach for (they lost to Toshiba, with Brown playing the first 40 minutes).
“I spent six weeks in hospital, and thought ’I can’t go out like this’,” he told Wilson. “I couldn’t eat any food, couldn’t get out of bed, and walked out of hospital at 72kg. My whole goal was to get back for the final.”
Brown also spoke about the state he found Otago rugby in when he returned to take charge of the provincial side in 2012.
“Everything that I thought Otago rugby was, I reckon we’d lost that. I wanted to create that environment and culture that we played under and I loved being part of. At the same time the ORU was going bankrupt, and it made my job easier to get rid of a lot of players I didn’t believe were good enough.
“So I just started picking young guys and local guys and tried to build a culture that way. I loved what we did. Even though we weren’t winning championships, I felt we were performing better than anyone thought we would, and for me that’s ultimately what rugby is about.”
Brown also compared the now infamous ‘Party at Tony Brown’s’ loss in the 1999 Super Rugby final he played in with the historic 2015 title-winning effort in Wellington he coached.
“The ’99 final was a frustrating time. The Crusaders had made a living winning championships as underdogs. But I believed we had a better team and we didn’t perform as well as we should have that day.”
Then in 2015, it was the Highlanders in the underdog role. “No one actually believed we could beat the Chiefs at home, go to Sydney and beat the Waratahs and then to Wellington and beat the Hurricanes,” mused Brown.
“But we created a huge amount of belief. Not one of our players believed we weren’t going to win that final. We felt the harder game was the Waratahs and once we destroyed those guys everyone knew we were going to win. I don’t think we were the better team – we just had more belief.”
