Japan head coach Jamie Joseph, right, takes a selfie with assistant coach Tony Brown, left, and strength and conditioning coach Andrew Beardmore. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Japan head coach Jamie Joseph, right, takes a selfie with assistant coach Tony Brown, left, and strength and conditioning coach Andrew Beardmore. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Opinion:
Presumably, when New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson is in Tokyo this week, he'll find time to chat with incumbent Japan coaches Jamie Joseph and Tony Brown.
Joseph and Brown are thought to be the two best paid international coaches in the world, but they are New Zealanders,and by all accounts interested in coming home after next year's World Cup.
Whether they do return will depend on what sort of coaching jobs they could pick up, and as both have been there and done that with the Highlanders, Super Rugby isn't likely to be strong enough to lure them home.
Coaching the All Blacks, however, would float their respective boats and these two would be a combination hard to resist.
Joseph and Brown tick every box. Joseph did the hard yards in New Zealand, working his way from Wellington to the Highlanders, winning a Super Rugby title in 2015 and one that came after he was forced to professionally re-evaluate his style in the wake of the 2013 season turning into an unforgettably bad custard despite heavy investment in a star-studded squad.
He's had two World Cup cycles with Japan and the improvements he's instilled are undeniable, with the single most telling evidence being produced in 2019, when the hosts responded magnificently to the pressure of being at home and made the quarterfinals for the first time in history, famously defeating Ireland and Scotland to get there.
Joseph carries the euphemistic "old school" tag as he comes with hard edges, makes big demands of his players, expects them to break their perceived limits and doesn't love social media.
If he was perhaps guilty of over doing the fire and brimstone earlier in his career, the re-reset of 2013 enabled him to tone things down enough to have a viable and sustainable future as a professional head coach, but not so much as to lose the essence of his coaching style.
And his partnership with Brown seems to keep things in equilibrium, as the former All Black No 10 brings the innovation to package around the Joseph-instilled work ethic.
Japan played with quite stunning skill, speed and precision in 2019 and were the most inventive and creative team at the tournament.
Japan head coach Jamie Joseph, left, and attack coach Tony Brown during the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Photo / Getty Images.
Their accuracy of passing, subtlety of running lines and technical proficiency in contact situations was a triumph for the imagination of Brown, and also for his ability to practically put into action what's in his head.
In 2019, these two were planning to be part of Ian Foster's group, but pulled out when NZR dithered with its process to replace Steve Hansen, and Japan made them an offer to stay that they simply couldn't refuse.
NZR can't let history repeat on this one and time Joseph and Brown out of the running again by leaving it too late to run the process to appoint the All Blacks coaching team for 2024.
Hence, the need for Robinson to be intelligence gathering and relationship-building this week in Tokyo, with a view to formulating a detailed plan on how and when to conduct the process to appoint the All Blacks coaching team for 2024.
Adding to that pressure to get the timing right is the knowledge that another contender, Scott Robertson, will be in the UK in November coaching the Barbarians, and with England, Scotland and Wales potentially in the market for new head coaches to take over after the World Cup, it would be naïve to not imagine the Crusaders supremo will be sounded out by all sorts of interested parties while he's up North.
And conducting a process early next year may not be such a bad thing for the incumbent team of Foster, Jason Ryan and Joe Schmidt, as it would give them an opportunity to press their case to continue without having to wait to be judged by what happens at the World Cup.
Some will bristle at the idea of continuing with Foster at the helm beyond 2023 given the results produced during his tenure to date, but the arrival of Ryan and Schmidt in August this year has been transformational.
With the right people around him now, Foster has been able to utilise his strengths as a strategist and skilled manager of player relationships and there is a strong possibility that the best coaching group to have charge of the All Blacks in 2024, is the one already in place.
But it seems silly for this to be a topic of debate and endless speculation when NZR could simply run a process early next year and provide a definitive answer.
