Why the future is now for All Blacks coach-in-waiting Scott 'Razor' Robertson
OPINION: New Zealand Rugby and the next All Blacks coach may not be quite aligned on the timing front, but one thing appears increasingly likely: Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson could be installed in the job he has always coveted above all long before Ian Foster and his men leave for France in their quest for a fourth global triumph.
And rightly so. Despite the grumblings of some, who wonder about the unsettling effect an early appointment would have on Foster’s All Blacks, and others suggesting Jamie Joseph’s is a bid worth perusal, the decision on the next national coach is something that simply cannot wait until the wake of this year’s World Cup.
That is just not a timeline that is viable in the modern, professional environment. That much appears to have dawned even on NZ Rugby, an organisation not exactly renowned for its fluid, flexible modern thinking.
Top clubs and leading national unions with vacancies are already hammering out their options for 2024 and beyond. These appointments require time to assemble support teams, to ensure availability of preferred candidates and to create certainty for those that are in the mix for these jobs.
To expect one union to play by a timetable that no one else is adhering to is, well, quite possibly the definition of insanity.
Sure, NZ Rugby has traditionally waited until a World Cup has played out before launching the process of finding a replacement or, as has been the case in more recent times, reappointing the incumbent. Often the result at the four-yearly global event has been seen as pivotal to the decision.
But times have changed. Money is significant. Borders are blurred. And coaches with CVs like Robertson’s – six titles in six years with a Crusaders team that has been nigh on untouchable in the franchise game – are highly sought after. It is no secret that the breakdancing, surfing former All Black has a handy list of suitors ready to wave eye-watering cheques under his nose.
It appeared early on Wednesday that this was all going to be resolved in a matter of weeks, if not days, as a buoyant, chirpy Robertson told a muddle of media at Crusaders HQ: “I've been really patient. I think where we are now, that's what we're going to deal with, not what's happened ... the next two weeks is big.”
HQ countered by declaring: “New Zealand Rugby is continuing to have internal discussions, but an announcement about the All Blacks’ head coach or process is not imminent.”
Read into that what you will.
But one translation might be that NZ Rugby are not going to rush what is inherently a delicate matter. They made the decision last year – the wrong one, for the third time, in this writer’s opinion – to stick with Foster through until the World Cup, despite major misgivings about the performances of the All Blacks and their frustrating inconsistency.
Once they committed to that course, it would be folly to deliberately rock the boat with the destination in sight. So the kid gloves are likely to be out and the succession process handled as though it is a combustive chemical mixture.
Foster will have to be appeased, encouraged and sated, even if the die is cast. It will have to be impressed that though he will not remain in the job beyond 2023, he is very much their man for the immediate task, and is backed to deliver the only result that meets his country’s expectations.
It could be that the inevitable is already becoming accepted. Mental skills man, and longtime Steve Hansen/Foster ally Gilbert Enoka, has recently been confirmed for a role at Chelsea football club. Sounds like he’s already framing his future.
And Robertson deserves certainty and clarity. He’s been put on standby once, when he was established as Plan B last year when NZ Rugby were on the brink of sacking Foster, only to have the rug pulled from under him when one unlikely result forced the dithering NZ Rugby board to lose their bottle.
It’s also interesting that the theory is being floated that to go early on the head coach for next cycle would effectively destabilise the All Blacks.
Are these men not professionals? Is the history they would make by becoming world champions not enough to inspire them to special deeds? And why when leading players such as Beauden Barrett are already deciding their own futures elsewhere beyond the global event, is that not considered a factor in looming performance? What’s good for the goose, and all that.
The truth is Foster has been fortunate, on both bare results and via the eye-test, to go the full four-year term, and it would be a major risk to chance losing the preferred, and with all due respect to Joseph, the streets-ahead No 1 candidate on the off chance that he suddenly figures out how to bring the very best out in these All Blacks.
NZ Rugby, and its board, has, in the opinion of many, badly handled the Foster era by effectively appointing and reappointing him three times. It is time to ask him to put his big boy pants on, give it his best lick in 2023 and live with the result. Who knows – he may even go out in a blaze of glory.
