Scott Robertson has yet to name his All Blacks coaching team for 2024. Photo / Photosport
Opinion:
At some stage in the next few months, Scott Robertson will inevitably have a moment when the euphoria of having been named the next All Blacks coach will leave him to be replaced, momentarily at least, by crippling fear.
This is the emotional journey his predecessors have travelled. It’s unavoidable because the All Blacks head coaching role is a job that unduly fascinates New Zealanders and hence it comes with a scrutiny reserved in most other countries for political leaders.
It’s a job where the twin imposters of triumph and disaster sit uncomfortably close to one another, often separated by nothing more than the bounce of the ball.
It’s part terrifying, part exhilarating as success can lead to a knighthood, an infallible reputation and doors to corporate boardrooms will forever be open.
But lose a few tests, as incumbent coach Ian Foster did, and the public and media can turn visceral in their attempts to force change.
Robertson, who has observed the nation absorb the highs of the All Blacks winning back-to-back World Cups, to the lows of losing to Argentina and Ireland at home last year, seems to know what he has let himself in for.
When he was asked about the pressure of being the All Blacks coach and the almost overbearing responsibility it carries, he said: “I get excited by this stuff. This is what gets me going. It’s important I take the next step up and be ambitious. It’s great timing.”
It’s partly Robertson’s indefatigable spirit and boundless energy that has driven him into the All Blacks role, qualities which he will need next year when the reality of what he has taken on hit home.
While he thinks he knows what’s coming, no new All Blacks coach ever does until they sit behind the desk and see just what it is they are in charge of.
And for Robertson, there remains a chance, one much higher than most are willing to believe, that he will find himself in charge of a world-champion team.
Most rugby observers appear to have used the results between 2020 and July 2022 to convince themselves the All Blacks are broken, rather than looking at the performances produced in the last 10 tests under a revamped coaching panel to see they may be a team on the up.
And not only are the All Blacks in much better shape than they are generally given credit for, there’s a randomness to World Cups that can defy best-laid plans, and as much as Ireland and France look the likely winners right now, both could be crushed under the weight of expectation.
If the All Blacks do win the World Cup this year, it will bring NZR’s high-performance thinking into question and force chief executive Mark Robinson to justify the decision to effectively dump a coach who went on to deliver the Webb Ellis trophy.
By extension, it will ramp the pressure on Robertson as expectations will suddenly be that bit higher and gone will be any sense that he was appointed on a mandate to rejuvenate a side that had lost its way.
Gone, too, will be a host of senior players such as Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith, Dane Coles, Richie Mo’unga and, for 2024 at least, Beauden Barrett.
No doubt Robertson will relish the opportunity to find the next generation of stars, but he’s losing 500-plus test caps, the best locking pair the country has ever known and the only two experienced playmakers in New Zealand.
Whatever attacking vision he comes up with for the All Blacks, it will have to be implemented by decision-makers new to test rugby – and at this precise moment, it’s not clear who that might be.
What he will also find when he comes into the job is that the playing cohort needs to be coerced out of what could be considered a siege mentality towards their employer.
Throughout most of 2021 and much of 2022, the All Blacks and NZR were at war with one another over the Silver Lake proposal, which the players opposed until the deal was reworked and signed off in June last year.
Tensions between the two have never properly eased and the decision to send the All Blacks to the World Cup with a coach who has not been backed by his employer has only intensified the players’ sense that there is little unity and cohesion between themselves and NZR.
Some kind of peace treaty will need to be struck next year as while the players can harness a sense of injustice about the way their coach has been treated to drive a successful World Cup campaign, division is not a long-term mechanism for success.
New Zealand’s most successful eras have come when there has been a mutual respect and close professional bond between the chief executive and All Blacks head coach.
Graham Henry and Steve Tew were united throughout the 2008-2011 World Cup cycle.
When Steve Hansen took over as head coach in 2012, his long-standing relationship with Tew was a significant factor in ensuring the commercial ambition of NZR didn’t intrude too far upon the high-performance needs of the All Blacks.
Unity between NZR and the All Blacks is the more powerful means by which to deliver success and Robertson, as a former Crusaders teammate of Robinson, is going to have to use their personal history to reconnect the two entities in 2024.
The new coach is also going to take charge of the world’s most commercialised rugby team – one which carries close to $100 million a year of sponsorship and one that will have ever-increasing demands placed upon it to fulfil content requests for social media and other platforms.
The scale of the All Blacks, now they have $200m of private equity banked within them, is incomprehensibly different to what Robertson has been used to with the Crusaders and it’s quite the juggling act to cope with all the aspects which the role demands.
Robertson has shown himself to be innovative and resourceful, and at his best when he’s under pressure.
That’s why the All Blacks job excites him, but he needs to be aware that the pressure that comes with the role he will be taking on is nothing like anything he’s yet experienced.
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OPINION: They haven’t had the luxury to opt out of politics.