22 July 2022 | All Blacks head coach Ian Foster has named his team for the upcoming SA tour, keeping Cane on as captain, but he remained tight-lipped over changes to coaching staff after their recent test series loss to Ireland. Video / NZ Herald
OPINION:
A week ago I suggested that New Zealand Rugby officials would not be firing coach Ian Foster.
One key reason? That "mea culpa" (acknowledging a fault or error) was not a phrase that came easily to our rugby officials.
Foster has a major chance of redemption in South Africa,a task that will take every last grain of skill, commitment, and shrewd coaching in the All Black camp.
Foster and his captain Sam Cane have basically become piñatas for rugby fans after an Irish series where the All Blacks were so far off the pace even NZR chief executive Mark Robinson called their efforts "not acceptable."
But if the Springboks win both tests then the guns should not just be turned on the All Blacks coaches and players, but also on how the NZRU picked Foster in the first place.
The process of selecting the successor to Steve Hansen, after the disappointing 2019 Cup in Japan, was very different to past years.
Foster and the other serious contender, Scott Robertson, were quizzed not by the NZRU board, but by a five person selection panel, of chairman Brent Impey, incoming CEO Mark Robinson, head of high performance at the NZRU Mike Anthony, former Silver Ferns netball coach Waimarama Taumaunu and 2011 World Cup winner Sir Graham Henry.
The NZRU board didn't select the panel, which was announced in Japan at the Cup tournament.
There was no question of the amount of sporting intelligence on the panel. But four of the five members had never actually coached rugby at even a provincial level. Robinson was a former All Black, but not a coach, and Anthony had been a highly respected strength and conditioning coach, never a team coach.
Once their interviews with Foster and Robertson were over, the panel picked Foster, and the decision was then presented to the NZRU board.
Sir Graham Henry was the only member of a five-person selection panel that selected Ian Foster to lead the All Blacks who had ever coached a rugby team. Photo / Photosport
Foster answered a handful of questions from board members after his appointment had been announced to them. Robertson was never invited to present to the board.
Business processes can sometimes seem cautious, even hidebound, but can you imagine the board of a major company like Fonterra hiring someone for a position that is at least as important to the company as a chief executive, without the board members even questioning the final candidates?
It was very different after the 2007 World Cup, the last time there was so much heat on New Zealand officials over a coaching position.
Graham Henry's All Blacks had been bundled out by France in a quarter-final of the Cup in Cardiff. A few days later, in Paris, NZRU chairman Jock Hobbs told me, "We'll have a new (All Black) coach by Christmas."
When it came time to choose between retaining Henry or appointing Robbie Deans (in a slightly eerie echo of the 2019 situation, then a highly successful Crusaders' coach) there was not one, but two steps.
First came a sub-committee, chaired by Cantabrian Mike Eagle - in the role because Hobbs was married to Deans' sister, Nicky. The sub-committee members cross examined Henry and Deans extensively.
It didn't stop then. The next day Henry and Deans faced the full NZRU board and, as Eagle would tell me several years later, the pair faced another serious grilling. Next morning the board voted for Henry.
Rugby's stakeholders, we've always been told by rugby officials, are the Kiwis who buy tickets to big games, pay their subscriptions to Sky to watch live rugby, coach the kids, turn out for club footy on Saturdays and volunteer to keep the clubrooms functioning.
It's an uneasy feeling to realise that the biggest decision in our rugby in recent years was made without the involvement of board members, the only elected people in New Zealand Rugby management.
