Tony Brown, who will be taking up a role as Springboks attack coach, will join the Blues in a short-term coaching consultant role. Photo / Photosport
Tony Brown, who will be taking up a role as Springboks attack coach, will join the Blues in a short-term coaching consultant role. Photo / Photosport
OPINION
For the next five months, the Blues will benefit from having the innovative thinking of Tony Brown in their midst.
The former All Black has been parachuted into the Blues’ coaching team to temporarily replace Jason O’Halloran, who has taken indefinite medical leave.
Brown was instrumental in building Japan’s attack for the 2019 World Cup, and he famously constructed a high-intensity, high-skilled formula that enabled the Cherry Blossoms to pull both Ireland and Scotland apart.
But there is a not-so-hidden cost to New Zealand of bringing in Brown as an emergency replacement – as he was making headlines two weeks ago having been unveiled as a new acquisition in the Springboks coaching set-up for 2024.
As much as Brown’s short-term placement in Auckland is a huge win for the Blues and to some extent Super Rugby, it is also a major win for South Africa, and highlights that of all the challenges facing New Zealand Rugby in a global marketplace where financial pain is being universally felt, protecting intellectual property is one of the toughest.
For a significant period – perhaps the entire Super Rugby campaign – Brown will be able to develop in-depth knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of players such as Rieko Ioane, Caleb Clarke, Mark Telea and Stephen Perofeta who are all most likely going to feature in various degrees for the All Blacks later this year.
Former Crusaders head coach Scott Robertson (current All Blacks coach) and former Highlanders head coach Tony Brown chat before a match. Photo / Photosport
He’ll know what kinks those players have in their technical make-up; how they default under pressure and what sort of visual cues they are slow to see and potentially likely to misread.
Come late August, when the All Blacks are in South Africa for a two-test series, it may be that his dossier of intelligence gathered while at the Blues becomes invaluable to the Springboks.
Given the tiny margins that have separated the All Blacks and Springboks in the last six years or so, it’s hardly stretching the bow to imagine that one or probably both tests will be decided by a couple of key moments and that Brown’s inside knowledge may be the factor that swings things South Africa’s way.
There’s been a similar, if not more direct transfer of All Blacks’ intellectual property across the Tasman following the announcement that Joe Schmidt is taking over as Wallabies head coach.
The dire state of the Wallabies at last year’s World Cup has enabled that defection – Schmidt served as All Blacks assistant from August 2022 to November 2023 – to be sold as being for the greater good of the Southern Hemisphere: an experienced, clever coach being asked to invigorate the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup by bringing structure, organisation and belief to the Australian national team.
But as valid as that argument is, it doesn’t change the fact that New Zealand continues to suffer from intellectual property seepage and appears powerless to stop its coaching fraternity from disappearing all over the world with trade secrets.
It isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. In 2008, Robbie Deans coached the Crusaders despite having signed a contract in late 2007 to also coach the Wallabies.
In 2012 and 2013 former All Blacks coach Graham Henry served as technical director for both the Blues and Argentina and Brown concurrently held various roles with the Highlanders and Japan throughout the period 2016 to 2022.
There’s an element in this of New Zealand doing its bit to help develop emerging nations (and strengthening Australia, their key strategic partner), but there must surely be a point at which so much IP disappears as to no longer be considered community largesse, but a high-performance threat.
So too should New Zealand be cautious about seeing this global appetite for their coaching IP as a ringing endorsement of their development programmes, as some of the demand may in fact reflect the accessibility of talent and the ease with which it can be lured.
It’s hard to imagine that South Africa would sanction All Blacks assistant coach Jason Ryan spending the next few months with one of their clubs where he would be afforded insight into their tight five, in the way Brown is being able to access some of New Zealand’s most exciting backs.
The question, though, is what, if anything, can New Zealand do to be more protective of its coaching IP?
Back in the amateur days there was an emotional card to play – a straight-out accusation of disloyalty and treachery provided most clubs and national teams with some protection against seeing their coach jump ship to an arch-rival.
But such a tool has long been rendered useless in a professional world where coaches are contractors for hire, and it is just about legally impossible to enforce any restrictions on where and with whom they can apply their trade.
It is a tough question to answer, but New Zealand does need to seriously evaluate what lost coaching IP is truly costing.
