All Blacks: Gregor Paul - The critical change that helped Ian Foster keep his job

OPINION:

A decision at last, a public show of support that looked like it may never come and to some degree an element of certainty that he'll be head coach of the All Blacks through to the next World Cup.

Ian Foster can finally, after months of media speculation and public opprobrium, feel like he may now experience peace in his lifetime.

He may not win hearts and minds as such, but he'd settle for universal acceptance that no matter how the public feels about him, they at least acknowledge that he and not Scott Robertson is the chosen one and that the media do much the same and lose the bloodlust from the daily narrative.

The World Cup is barely more than a year away and he's going to be the man leading the All Blacks in France.

Right decision or wrong decision – that is the one that has been made and Foster and New Zealand Rugby will be hoping that a nation can become believers and reconnect with an All Blacks side from which, until the epic victory at Ellis Park, they had become estranged.

Certainly, the resilience and resourcefulness the All Blacks displayed in beating South Africa has helped shift the dial, and even the most acerbic Foster sceptics would concede it was a performance full of hope.

The critical element was the strength of the analysis that was applied after the loss in Mbombela the previous week.

All Blacks head coach Ian Foster and NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson. Photo / Photosport

The All Blacks dug deep into South Africa's strategic approach and more deeply still into their own failings to counter and respond.

They made heavy tactical adjustments and strong technical improvements a week later in Johannesburg and while the players must take much of the credit for delivering more accurate execution of the basics and a gutsy shift in the physical encounters, the real story of the game was that the victory was earned in the coaching box.

The All Blacks out-coached and out-thought the Springboks and we had the first tangible evidence that the arrival of Jason Ryan as forwards coach and Joe Schmidt as analyst were making a real impact.

The fact that Schmidt has now been persuaded to take on the role of attack coach, travel with the team and be on the training ground, hands-on and contributing, would have been a critical factor in persuading the NZR board that the rejigged coaching set-up is one with which they can have confidence.

If we look back to the first test in July to a coaching team of Foster, John Plumtree, Brad Mooar, Scott McLeod and Greg Feek to the one now of Foster, Ryan, Schmidt, McLeod and Feek, there is every reason to be more confident in the current set-up which has considerably more experience and proven performers.

But the nature of high-performance is such that while Foster has been rewarded for making changes, there remains an element of concern that they weren't made earlier.

The evidence to make coaching changes at the end of last year was irrefutable and yet it was ignored. And while Foster has previously tried to say that the media have exaggerated how bad the reviews were of his assistants in 2021, the immediate impact Ryan has made as forwards coach suggests the media were not in any way guilty of hyperbole.

Ian Foster will stay as All Blacks head coach through to the World Cup. Photo / Photosport

The Irish series was effectively wasted trying to save a coaching group that couldn't be saved and so too was it wasteful and unjustifiable to pick Karl Tu'inukuafe, when he'd already announced he was leaving for France later this year.

One area the All Blacks have struggled to keep pace with the rest of the world is prop, and the Irish series was crying out for an injection of new blood in the front row – and for the likes of Ethan de Groot, Fletcher Newell and maybe even Tamaiti Williams to be included.
It seems that it took misfortune to others – Nepo Laulala and Ofa Tuungafasi and the exposure of Angus Ta'avao's scrummaging in Mbombela – to open the door to de Groot, Newell and another initially rejected selection, Tyrel Lomax.

It also took an inordinately long time for Samisoni Taukei'aho to be promoted to start at hooker. There were calls for him to start against France last year and yet it took until the first test against South Africa this year for that to happen.

Selection isn't an easy art, and no coach ever gets it all right, but it's hard not to keep wondering whether Foster has landed on the right squares in terms of selection more by good luck than by good management and therefore a dose of scepticism at this juncture should be considered healthy rather than misplaced or unpatriotic.

The performance at Ellis Park is reason to believe that Foster, with his new coaching set-up, can indeed continue to grow and develop this team.

But so too does it have to be remembered that it was just one win – and just the second in the last seven tests - and while a nation may indeed want to become believers and get behind the team more than they have, they will need something stronger than the unanimous endorsement of the board to be convinced they are looking at an All Blacks side that can win next year's World Cup.