OPINION:
There is a small chance that in time the rest of the world will follow the All Blacks' latest move to expand their coaching team and work with in-house mentors to upskill anyone in the group who is struggling.
This idea of having coaches for the coaches could be revolutionary. Maybe this will be the future for everyone, a core group of full-time coaches supported by a part-timer here, a consultant there and a sounding board at the end of a Zoom call after a long day in the field.
It almost makes sense when you look at the support network that modern international teams put around their players, so why not their coaches too?
Why not be willing to accept that like players, coaches may need help to grow: that they may need external guidance to learn their craft on the job.
There's definitely a possibility the All Blacks are forging a new path for how coaching operates at this level.
But right now, it feels only a remote possibility and there is a greater chance that the decision by All Blacks head coach Ian Foster to bring in Andrew Strawbridge as a skills consultant and Mike Cron as an informal mentor is a case of finding a convoluted solution to a problem that had an easier fix.
The easier fix would have been to reconsider the role of scrum coach Greg Feek and/or forwards coach John Plumtree, both of whom had their work put under the spotlight in the review of the 2021 season.
Their review feedback from 2020 is understood not to have been glowing either and in the Darwinian world of the All Blacks it has always been the way that only the fittest can survive.
This is the All Blacks, the most successful rugby team in history and their legacy is built on an underlying culture of excellence achieved through non-tolerance of mediocrity.
By nature, there is a cold, ruthless element locked into the All Blacks' success. Good players, great players sometimes, have been left out, deemed not right for the occasion, or no longer fit to fulfil the collective purpose.
It's not personal or gratuitous, but instead guided by an acceptance that the needs of the team come first and essentially the All Blacks have subscribed to a natural selection where the difficulties of the environment expose those who can't adapt.
While it's fair to argue that bringing in Cron and Strawbridge is a solution to the problems identified in the review and being done to strengthen the collective, the counter to that is that the All Blacks are not a finishing school for aspiring coaches and perhaps their respective appointments are more about protecting individuals rather than enabling the team.
The question most pertinent to ask is whether Strawbridge and Cron would have been engaged at all if there was strong and definitive evidence that the core coaching group were all performing at the level they were expected to be?
What Foster has done is manipulate the ecosystem to help those who aren't at the level they need to be and messing with nature doesn't typically end well.
The risk of bringing in additional coaching resources to troubleshoot, to plug gaps in the skill-set of the core group and to provide them with real-time feedback on the job, is both practical and cultural.
The practical issue is that having so many figures involved in the coaching group generates a level of confusion and uncertainty. Who is there to coach the players and who is there to coach the coaches?
Having layer upon layer works for wedding cakes, but not international rugby teams. Players like simplicity and clarity – one voice of authority telling them what they need to hear.
The cultural issue relates to the perception that the environment is missing an edge: a necessary sense of fear that time in the team is tenuous and absolutely related to performance.
It is inevitable that players may start wondering whether they will be afforded the same leniency if they don't deliver and even the tiniest hint of comfort or complacency can be lethal to a team's aspirations.
The best All Blacks teams have always had a deep sense of unease pervading through the ranks.
In 2015, the intensity and expectation of captain Richie McCaw and coach Steve Hansen were so high and relentless, that most All Blacks found playing the Springboks almost a blessed relief.
The easy part was playing, the hard part was preparing to the exacting demands of their captain and coach.
There was a ferocious sense of discomfort within that team which drove players to give more and an edge like that can only be built when there are real and visible consequences for those who don't meet the standard.
But again, perhaps what we are seeing with the decision to bolster the coaching team, is genuine All Blacks innovation.
As much as their success has been built on a dedication to tradition, so too have they been bold enough to innovate at various times and try things no one else has thought of.
It could be said that the decision to retain the coaching team of Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Hansen was no different to what we are seeing now: a group that failed to deliver at the 2007 World Cup was given a chance to learn and grow from adversity and reappointed through to the next tournament.
Perseverance and patience were rewarded back then with victory at the 2011 World Cup and perhaps the arrival of a coaching team to help the coaching team will deliver the All Blacks their fourth world title in 2023.
It's just that right now, with 18 months until the next World Cup, it feels like the cleaner, less risky move would have been to thank Feek and Plumtree for their contribution and look for direct replacements rather than a part-time consultant and mentor to package around them.
'A crushing blow to their self-image.'