Cricket: New Auckland coach sails quietly into job

By Chris Rattue

It was one of the quietest coaching appointments in a long time.

When the dapper David Trist was hauled away to take over the national cricket side from Steve Rixon, Tony Sail quietly slid into the job as Auckland coach.

The fax machine hardly stirred. Auckland cricket's "worldwide" search for a new coach had ended up with a man already parked just a long throw from chief executive Lindsay Crocker's office.

The 41-year-old Tony Sail, a schoolteacher from the mid-North Island, will guide Auckland this season as they look to build on the glimpses of promise shown by Trist's team last year.

The Auckland Cricket Association's appointment of Sail, who had been its director of player development for a year, has been termed an "interim measure" while the association looks for a long-term appointment.

Crocker wants to make the job a full-time one, but could not find the right, available, candidate.

So Sail has stepped in, although he does not see his term lasting more than one season.

"The secret to the best teams is making sure that when you do drop off, and it happens to everyone, that you don't drop too far," Sail said.

"That involves having strategies beneath the top side and that is where I see my role.

"People ask 'what will you do if Auckland win everything?' But I don't see it as an issue. We can look at that if the time comes."

John Howell, from New Zealand Cricket, will take over Sail's development duties during the season, leaving the new coach free to concentrate on the top job.

"I consider it an honour to coach Auckland. My job as a teacher only allowed me to think cricket when required. To be able to think cricket 24 hours a day is bliss for me," he said.

Sail taught physical education at Hawera and Napier Boys' High Schools before taking on the Auckland development job.

He had previously coached the national development side and Central District age-grade sides.

An allrounder, he made numerous appearances as a 12th man for Central Districts but his sporting regret is that he never made a first-class appearance for them.

Sail believes major strides were made last season when the Auckland side began to emerge from what had been a cricket horror show.

"Prior to that, the Auckland team were just not functioning. I don't want to look back too much but no one was taking responsibility," he said.

"Everyone was looking at everyone else. No one was putting their hand up. The players were looking at the coach, the coach was looking at the selectors, the selectors were looking at the players. It was going nowhere.

"We needed to exorcise that and create a new culture, and for players to not just look at how many runs and wickets they got but how they actually played.

"I believe strongly in players selfmanaging their training - in a way a reduction in the coach's role - constantly measuring efficiency, and a strong emphasis on the base skills.

"Benchmarking is also important. If you are opening for Auckland, then the aim is to become the best opener in New Zealand. If you are opening for New Zealand, the aim is to become the best opener in the world. Just getting selected isn't enough.

"There were a lot of people playing in the Auckland side who had 60, 70, 80 innings and were still being talked about as having potential. You've got to produce.

"Auckland have lost some good cricketers and we want to create a culture where players want to be in this team.

"I believe we should set the standards for New Zealand cricket. Every player in the Auckland side should be capable of playing for New Zealand - that has to be our aim."

Sail said a measure of Auckland's failure was that with all their development programmes, they had produced only a couple of New Zealand players like Adam Parore and Phil Horne in recent years - a small return compared to the likes of Canterbury.

Auckland had previously not rated age-group tournaments highly, but that had changed and the under-19s had been runners-up in their last tournament, with the under-17s winning their grade for the first time in many years, he said.

The cricket season is just a month away, if you count Max cricket, although the real stuff begins in late December.

Auckland will have some handy newcomers to choose in Llorne Howell (Canterbury), David Blake (Central Districts) and John Aiken (Wellington), while Wellington pace bowler Heath Davis is also a possibility, although Bryan Young will not be available.

But Sail's main message is that Auckland must find its strength from within.