FOSTER - NOW GONE 🎉 - congrats kiwis

[Grandpa]

I thought I heard Henry interview to say Foster was the wrong choice. But think he was suggesting Rennie.

Edit: here’s a link

https://www.rugby.com.au/news/2020/10/1 ... ian-foster

He was certainly right that Foster was the wrong choice!

I can't see Razor buggering off before the World Cup though? Surely he always assumed that was when a new coach would b decided on?

[Ymx]

He’s contracted to NZR until end 23.

But I guess that doesn’t stop him signing a contract in advance/retainer.

[Guy Smiley]

He’s contracted to NZR until end 23.

But I guess that doesn’t stop him signing a contract in advance/retainer.

Every coach is signed until after the RWC.

Every Union should be flat out working on their replacement / succession plans now.

Razor is right in the picture.

[Kiap]

“I want to win Rugby World Cup but I want to win it with two different countries. I haven’t said it publicly before but it would transcend,” he said.

“It would be great to win a World Cup with your own country which I want to do, that is the foremost thing, but I would love to do it with another country.

So he's been in Sydney and is hanging out this shingle.....

We'll sign im up, then.

I believe DR isn't looking beyond 2023

[Guy Smiley]

I’d rather see him coach England than you lot…

and they are cnuts to lose to.

[Kiap]

I’d rather see him coach England than you lot…

and they are cnuts to lose to.

They are indeed

Think the poms might appoint a pom, tho.

Two wc cycles with fast Eddie Foreigner and they've probably had enough.

[Guy Smiley]

I’d rather see him coach England than you lot…

and they are cnuts to lose to.

They are indeed

Think the poms might appoint a pom, tho.

Two wc cycles with fast Eddie Foreigner and they've probably had enough.

Yeah, pretty sure they want a local.

I reckon Razor would transcend the growing ‘there’s too much Kiwi in Australian rugby’ faction, too… but it’d be fun watching the mental gymnastics over it.

[Kiap]

Maybe he would. Dunno.

Part would depend on how far we split from nz rugby in around 12 months time.

We, as do the poms, also would want one of our own in charge if that can work ... but who are those options?

Cheika (never again)
Eddie (prob not as HC now, but who's to say?)

McKellar, then Coleman, would get on the list (I rate the latter as a future man for the job) and perhaps some OS exiles get added as well, but none are quite a "slam dunk", shut the gate choice.

[Guy Smiley]

McKellar seems pretty switched on, I don't know much of Coleman.

I reckon Eddie would be angling for a Director type role now, I admire his passion for rugby but I think he must realise a desire for new blood sets him offside with a lot of people in the game...

and it's that, 'the people in the game' that are our problem here in NZ. It's a cliquey, complacent bunch of nepotists running it on our side.


https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/3 ... pp-android

It is interesting that many of the people who wrote to me traced the fault line back to Tew and Hansen. But then Laurie Mains, the coach of the 1995 World Cup All Blacks, recently did the same. He identified the problem, like so many who wrote to me, as an inability to foster change.

Mains pointed out that the whole continuity theory was nonsense, as I have argued time and again, because it prevents a team from evolving. That ill-considered theory is the fault of the great triumvirate of Tew, Graham Henry and Hansen, the men who catapulted Foster into a job for which he was sadly ill-equipped.

Belatedly, the people at the top have made what might be described as a tweak, rather than a change, by bringing in the excellent Jason Ryan to coach the forwards. So they still will not appoint Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson, but have now started stealing his staff to replace Foster’s failed appointments. It seems a bit

[Grandpa]

Well said.... it is unbelievable that Foster is still in a job.. yet his assistants are sacked... so much for the buck stopping with the boss...


NZ Rugby throwing good money after bad All Blacks coach
25 Jul, 2022 05:00 AM

LOSERS: New Zealand Rugby
The national sport's hierarchy is looking sillier by the day.

A needle pointing to incompetence is now veering towards negligence as NZR desperately props up Ian Foster's hopeless All Blacks coaching regime.

Why throw good money after bad?
If selector Joe Schmidt - who has been given a bigger role - and new assistant Jason Ryan are the answers, great.
But don't shackle them to Foster, who is out of his depth just as his old boss Steve Hansen was at the end of his mainly glorious reign.
NZR has no dynamic plans or vibrant leadership, anywhere.
It gets so many decisions wrong, and to that can be added - by their own actions - the appointment of Foster's recently sacked assistants, who became the fall guys.

Kiwi rugby is a great big useless mess that is falling in on itself. And it is so unpopular that some people I know and meet say they want the All Blacks to lose, hoping it brings change.

Whether they still feel that way when the test matches actually start may be another matter. But the sentiment is clear.
The institution propping rugby up in this country is a secondary school system that is presented with the nation's finest talent and then proceeds to showcase it for rugby (and the NRL) to snap up.

Everywhere else - from international dealings to running a proper professional competition to what happens on the field - rugby is failing to stay with the times, let alone get ahead of the game.

Some of the problems rugby faces are difficult. New Zealand's isolation and small economy have turned into significant hurdles. The game itself is also struggling to deliver because professionalism has turned it into a sort of dangerous bull rush interrupted by annoying and sometimes incomprehensible rulings and delays.

But the All Black coaching situation was - and still is - dead easy to sort out. The rugby bosses can't even get that right.
New Zealand rugby is an old dog with no new tricks, let alone a glorious vision.


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/chris- ... 5RGVBR6NU/

[Thor Sedan]

I just don't know how most of the players are OK with Foster staying on?

I say most because a couple are only in the team because of Fosters tired vision.

How do you respect a coach who is allowing his assistants to take the fall for plans he ultimately has control of? I absolutely hate where NZ rugby is right now. A treacherous leader willing to throw his support team under the bus in order to save himself in a role he is ill equipped for. A governing body so enamoured with past glories that they are now out of touch with modern rugby. And players who seem to have forgotten about the Jersey they are wearing - seemingly accepting mediocrity as long as they get their sponsorship deals.

And the worst thing - is this has been coming for years.

[Guy Smiley]

I just don't know how most of the players are OK with Foster staying on?

Firstly, you don't want to rock the boat when you're trying to take a piss over the stern and secondly... toeing the company line becomes ingrained, automatic and blinkered.

[Ymx]

I just don't know how most of the players are OK with Foster staying on?

Firstly, you don't want to rock the boat when you're trying to take a piss over the stern and secondly... toeing the company line becomes ingrained, automatic and blinkered.

I must admit, I was very surprised to hear R’Mo coming out to support him.

[Ymx]

Oh no. R Mo is now going to be taking attack guidance advice from Foster.

“So you need to be more like BB. You need to not think about straight attack, but run across the field like a headless chook to confuse them. Plenty of cross kicks, especially when in own 22. “

[Guy Smiley]

I just don't know how most of the players are OK with Foster staying on?

Firstly, you don't want to rock the boat when you're trying to take a piss over the stern and secondly... toeing the company line becomes ingrained, automatic and blinkered.

I must admit, I was very surprised to hear R’Mo coming out to support him.

Yeah... surely he'd be better off coming out and saying he thinks the guy is a fucking idiot.

[Ymx]

I get that Guy. He’s obviously got to stick to keeping it tight in the team. He’s got to live and work with these guys for the foreseeable.

But thought he’d be better off keeping schtum than saving Fosters cred.

[Guy Smiley]

He had to answer the question somehow though…

and it’s worth remembering that a lot of rugby players, particularly the driven ones who make it to the top levels, aren’t necessarily sharp intellects.

[Grandpa]

I get that Guy. He’s obviously got to stick to keeping it tight in the team. He’s got to live and work with these guys for the foreseeable.

But thought he’d be better off keeping schtum than saving Fosters cred.

He was asked a direct question about Foster though... anything less than tacit approval and he might not start another game under Foster...

[convoluted]

I thought I heard Henry interview to say Foster was the wrong choice. But think he was suggesting Rennie.

Edit: here’s a link

https://www.rugby.com.au/news/2020/10/1 ... ian-foster

Thanks for that.

But mention of Rennie is a distraction. The fact is that there was a straight shootout between Foster and Robertson, and they went with Foster.
The link lists the panel: Making (Henry's) comments (re. Rennie) all the more extraordinary is that Henry was on the panel to select Foster as Hansen's successor along with long-time New Zealand Chairman Brent Impey, new CEO Mark Robinson, head of high performance Mike Anthony and netball icon Waimarama Taumaunu.

So NZRU CEO Robinson was present, but surely it was Henry, as the only actual rugby coach on the panel, who would have put forward the most pertinent coaching questions to the two candidates and who would have had by far the most sway when it came to the panel making their final decision.

And, significantly, nowhere in the link does Henry claim or acknowledge that he would have voted for Rennie instead of Foster had it been a three-way race.
I'll stick to my guns and say this link does nothing more than detail Henry, having made the call for it to be Foster, covering his ass by distracting to Rennie in case of the highly-likely outcome that, as Obama noted of Biden, "Don't underestimate (Foster's) ability to fcuk up".

[Guy Smiley]

You could equally draw a conclusion that the Board voted against Henry’s recommendation.

[convoluted]

^^^
In that case, instead of talking about Rennie, Henry would have been pumping the reasons why he'd favored Robertson.

[Ymx]

^^^
In that case, instead of talking about Rennie, Henry would have been pumping the reasons why he'd favored Robertson.

No, not necessarily. But either way, he was certainly not bigging up Foster as the correct man.

[Guy Smiley]

^^^
In that case, instead of talking about Rennie, Henry would have been pumping the reasons why he'd favored Robertson.

No, not necessarily. But either way, he was certainly not bigging up Foster as the correct man.

Context... read the article. Henry is talking about NZR fiucking up by not staying in touch with Rennie (for three years FFS) in the lead up to Hansens' retirement It's also published on an Oz site and they always find some angle to hype before a bigvgame involving their sports teams, especially with us Kiwis.

It's not about his preference for one coach over another, it's more nuanced than that... and trying to make this into some sort of agenda about Henry shafting Razor for Foster is just fantasy stuff.

[Ymx]

Hansen attacking NZR for bad handling, but mostly because he knows he is to blame for Fosters appointment.

[Guy Smiley]

Hansen attacking NZR for bad handling, but mostly because he knows he is to blame for Fosters appointment.

Someone posted a clip on reddit of an interview with him... I tried to watch it but I couldn't handle his fatuous bullfrogging.

[Gumboot]

I'll stick to my guns and say this link does nothing more than detail Henry, having made the call for it to be Foster, covering his ass by distracting to Rennie in case of the highly-likely outcome that, as Obama noted of Biden, "Don't underestimate (Foster's) ability to fcuk up".

Obsessed much...

[Grandpa]

Hansen attacking NZR for bad handling, but mostly because he knows he is to blame for Fosters appointment.

A long way of saying nothing at all...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... -heres-why

[Guy Smiley]

The hits keep coming folks..:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/30064 ... pp-android

“Well, the chief executive of New Zealand Rugby is right up there in terms of publicity and persona as the prime minister. I found in my day I used to do more media than the prime minister on some days.

“We don’t need a CEO to learn how to be a CEO at New Zealand Rugby. We need somebody who knows what they’re doing, and if they make mistakes, like we all do, they can just own it.

“Don’t hide, don’t blame the board if they make decisions, it’s him, he’s the chief executive, the buck stops with him. The board sets strategy and policy, that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. The rest of the time the chief executive is running the place.

“I feel for these guys, because I’ve been there. But I never ducked the media. I always fronted, always took the flak, never made excuses. And that’s what we need to see in our chief executive. Robinson needs to get back here and he needs to front the media and he needs to tell them what’s gone wrong, what he’s doing about it and be open, instead of hiding away up there in Birmingham. We don’t want to see that in our chief executive.”

Asked if he felt Robinson should resign, Moffett was equally frank.

“Yes, I think he should,” he said.

[Ymx]

What a shambles.

Biggest issue is that it’s now creating a noise around a wider issue, which will in turn delay focus on Fosters festering mess.

[Guy Smiley]

I dunno about that...


this is so noisy and so messy that it could just be the trigger that's needed. I wouldn't be surprised to see the board step in soon.

[Guy Smiley]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... uth-africa

Many also noted that NZ Rugby chief executive Robinson had been “invisible” through the shakeup following the Irish defeat and subsequent fallout, including a cancelled media appearance from Foster on the Sunday after losing the Wellington decider.


But Robinson did make his first public utterances on Saturday, fronting for an interview from Birmingham on Newstalk ZB where he addressed the key issues surrounding him at present. Or at least manoeuvred around making any significant comment on many of them.

But when asked at the start of the interview if he maintained Foster was the right person to coach the All Blacks through to the World Cup, Robinson’s response was telling.

“He’s certainly the person to lead the team to South Africa, and we’re making sure they’ve got everything possible in the way of resourcing and support to make sure that’s successful,” he said.

[Guy Smiley]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all ... p-concerns

ANALYSIS: New Zealand’s rugby players were so concerned about the direction of New Zealand Rugby that they were prepared to halt talks over the Silver Lake investment deal on the single issue of a review into the governing body’s fitness for purpose.

That governance review is coming. Under the terms of the NZ Rugby-NZRPA agreement on Silver Lake, signed in early June, it had to be undertaken within 60 days of the deal being signed.

That review, therefore, shapes as the mechanism for change within NZ Rugby that many within the game view as necessary, and overdue.

If it is done with sincerity – or, to borrow a Steve Hansen-ism, if it is “bone deep” – NZ Rugby will be a different body in 12 months’ time.

That review is also the context to Hansen’s scathing criticism of NZ Rugby on Thursday, and in particular his comment that the “relationship between the board and the exec and players at the moment is probably the worst it's ever been”.

That’s a subjective view, of course, and you can bet the All Blacks players will steer clear of it – they have the sizeable challenge of the Springboks in the front of their minds.

NZ Rugby could also argue that the relationship is perfectly functional, noting that the feedback link between players and the union was operating as normal when they took on board the reviews of recently deposed assistants John Plumtree and Brad Mooar.

But, Stuff understands the player feedback on Plumtree and Mooar had been consistent for a couple of years, without action from the NZ Rugby board.

If NZ Rugby’s intent was to support and protect them, they failed. In axing them after the Ireland series loss, NZ Rugby instead put an enormous amount of blame on their shoulders. Being strong enough to thank them for their services at the start of the year would have spared them that.

The board, therefore, must be accountable, particularly as disheartened All Blacks supporters view the current issues as part of a pattern that stretches back four or five years.

Would the All Blacks be in such strife had the original process to replace Hansen been handled better?

Given the extraordinary depth of New Zealand coaching resources around the world, it was an underwhelming outcome to end up with Ian Foster, Plumtree, Mooar, Scott McLeod and Greg Feek as the coaching setup, particularly when the nature of the Rugby World Cup loss to England screamed out for only the best and brightest to step in.

None of this is an attack on the individuals named above, nor it is a hatchet job on NZ Rugby, which continues to do some things well.

For example, when Stuff spoke to Chris Boyd on Thursday, the incoming Highlanders coaching mentor spoke glowingly of NZ Rugby’s coach development program under Bruce Blair. Boyd pointed out that England’s RFU had no such program.

Yet, the question must still be asked if the NZ Rugby board has the requisite skillsets to make the right decisions for high-performance sport. That’s what this comes down to.

The coming review into NZ Rugby should address that question and many more, particularly if it has the rigour of the Black Ferns’ culture review released in April. It was utterly scathing and unearthed a failure of governance across another team in black.

It feels like change is coming. Until now, Foster, Sam Cane, Mooar, Plumtree or the scapegoat of the day have taken the flak. But, kicked along by Hansen’s hand grenade, this conversation is getting closer to the boardroom door.

Bring it.

[Ymx]

“He’s certainly the person to lead the team to SA”

that’s a harsh response.

That means we have a chance of ridding ourselves of Foster, if SA tour is a bad one.

Come on Bokke !

[Gumboot]

Come on Bokke !

Fuck that. Come on, All Blacks!

[Ymx]

Come on Bokke !

Fuck that. Come on, All Blacks!

Look at you! A true big boy patriot!

I’d happily sacrifice the RC this year, if it meant we’ve a chance in the RWC.

[Guy Smiley]

Come on Bokke !

Fuck that. Come on, All Blacks!

Look at you! A true big boy patriot!

I’d happily sacrifice the RC this year, if it meant we’ve a chance in the RWC.

We've got bigger problems than winning tournaments.

Our whole national union is a mess right now. If this isn't sorted, straightened and cleaned up properly and in good time then kiss winning RWCs goodbye for years.

[Gumboot]

Come on Bokke !

Fuck that. Come on, All Blacks!

Look at you! A true big boy patriot!

I’d happily sacrifice the RC this year, if it meant we’ve a chance in the RWC.

No way, next you'll be suggesting we sacrifice the Bled. What's patriotic about that?

[Ymx]

Any link to that interview with Robinson?

[Ymx]

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/wee ... -africa-1/

[Ymx]

Even with vpn I can’t get that to work.

Something about dns error iheart.com

You seeing that error from NZ