THREE KEY FACTS

• Leon MacDonald left his post as All Blacks assistant coach just five matches into a four-year contract.
• New Zealand Rugby have fronted media to say MacDonald and head coach Scott Robertson had differing opinions.
• MacDonald’s position has not been filled, with other coaching staff absorbing his duties.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.

OPINION

Following assistant coach Leon MacDonald’s premature exit from the All Blacks, there remains a cast of characters who have not spoken publicly about the issue.

All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and New Zealand Rugby (NZR) general manager of professional rugby Chris Lendrum have been the two institutional figureheads who have fronted media to say that MacDonald’s departure after just five tests was the result of a divergence in rugby opinion and a failure to get on the same page as the rest of the coaching group.

The All Blacks have done their best to draw a line under this episode, with forwards coach Jason Ryan saying earlier this week in South Africa: “We’ve just got on with it.

“The conversations were had and decisions were made and we move on pretty quickly. As far as we’re concerned it is last week’s news and we keep moving forward.”

But as much as the All Blacks are eager to shut this down and to kill interest in what happened, the fact so many other key figures outside the team have remained silent means the last week has generated more questions than it has answers.

Now, the story that needs greater scrutiny is not why the relationship between MacDonald and Robertson broke down, but why it was ever sanctioned by New Zealand Rugby in the first place.

This is one of many questions to have arisen, with the others being: who had oversight of the appointment process; has Robertson been granted unprecedented leeway and financial resources to make his tenure a success; is NZR’s executive team focused on creating powerful media narratives rather than making smart decisions; and is too much time, energy, resource and money being spent on teams in black to the detriment of all other aspects of the wider rugby ecosystem?

There were two significant departures from the norm in the process to appoint Robertson last March.

There was the timing – the decision having been made to break with convention and conduct the whole business of recruiting the next coach seven months before the World Cup, rather than wait, as has been the case throughout the professional era, until after the tournament.

And secondly, unlike previous processes, candidates were not assessed on the proposed wider coaching teams they were likely to assemble, and instead Robertson was appointed as head coach, who was then given time to recruit his assistants, management and support staff.

There were primarily two reasons for this change: the need to present a wider coaching team had in the past led to horse-trading behind the scenes where various individuals – notably Tony Brown – were being courted and wooed by several candidates.

This created a scenario where prospective assistants were forced to commit to a specific head coach, and weren’t then able to be recruited, even if they were the best qualified, by the successful candidate.

NZR was also conscious that in July 2022, it made the unprecedented decision to fire two All Blacks assistants – John Plumtree and Brad Mooar – and that it needed better oversight and to conduct deeper due diligence to ensure all members of the wider All Blacks coaching team were equipped to do the roles for which they were appointed.

NZR chief executive Mark Robinson confirmed as much himself when he said on the day Robertson was announced as head coach: “In regards to a team, we were mainly focused on selecting a head coach. Certainly, we gained some insights in terms of the groups of people candidates might work with but at the same time they understand that’s a process we want to have some sort of input and say in.”

Inevitably, given MacDonald lasted just five tests, questions have to be asked about how involved NZR was in scrutinising and challenging Robertson’s wider coaching team selection, making sure all parties were compatible, philosophically aligned, individually capable of coaching to the required standard and being utilised in suitable roles for their respective skillsets.

This was particularly valid given the national body knew that both Robertson and MacDonald had worked together before at the Crusaders in 2017, with the latter declining the opportunity to stay for a second year.

While it is understood there was no specific incident or obvious falling-out between the pair, Robertson and the rest of the Crusaders staff were hurt that after turning down the chance to stay in Christchurch for another year because he wanted to be with his family in Blenheim, MacDonald took an assistant role with the Blues six months later.

That episode should have served as a red flag for NZR to investigate the compatibility of MacDonald and Robertson working together effectively again when the latter approached the former to be part of his All Blacks coaching group in April last year.

Whoever had oversight of the appointment process needed to be conducting extensive due diligence to ascertain why both men felt their working relationship would be different, or better, in the higher-pressure environment of the All Blacks.

But as one source told the Herald: “That never happened”. The source went on to say that NZR, having ousted former All Blacks coach Ian Foster, is determined to give Robertson every possible resource he needs to succeed and that neither the executive, high-performance unit nor the board are asking the right questions to ensure decisions are being made for the right reasons.

One of the other key questions that needed to be asked in assembling the coaching group was the compatibility of MacDonald to work effectively with fellow assistant Scott Hansen, who, as the Herald understands it, operates as the de facto head coach.

Robertson’s set-up is innovative and different to anything that has gone before – as he sees himself as a “culture coach”, taking responsibility for uniting players, aligning them with one another and the wider objectives of the team and ensuring there is cohesion and understanding of strategy and connection to the legacy.

His hands-on coaching involvement is believed to be limited in comparison with his predecessors, and it is understood that it is predominantly Hansen who leads game-day planning and post-match reviews.

Also, the fact that MacDonald is not being replaced suggests his role was either superfluous or certainly not critical if it could be so easily and readily absorbed by existing members of the coaching group.

And several commentators have pointed to the imbalance in the initial coaching set-up – that MacDonald and his fellow assistant Jason Holland were both focused on attack, while Jason Ryan has sole responsibility for all aspects of the forwards.

Robertson is a relatively young, resourceful, deep-thinking coach who has brought new ideas, fresh thinking and energy to the All Blacks, but given that MacDonald left his job just five tests into a four-year contract, there has to be some light shone on those outside the team who had responsibility to oversee and evaluate the appointment process precisely to ensure that the introduction of a new way of doing things didn’t lead to someone walking out five tests into a four-year contract.

This idea that NZR was more focused on giving the media a narrative to buy into about the heavyweight excellence contained within the coaching group rather than whether it was appropriately set up to succeed, was accentuated by the exaggerated presentation around the role Sir Wayne Smith would play in the newly created job of performance coach for both the All Blacks and Black Ferns.

NZR made the announcement via a press conference in Christchurch last May - with the Herald being advised by the national body the night before, that they should send a reporter along as the news set to break was significant.

Robinson told reporters at the conference: “Smithy’s input and insights on the shape of the game and trends in the game internationally will be of enormous benefit to coaches and players, but more than that his integrity, honesty, passion for the jersey and care for the legacy of the black jersey are invaluable.”

But while the impression was given that Smith was being engaged in a fulltime capacity, NZR have confirmed that his role is actually ad hoc and that he was not utilised to help mediate or oversee a resolution between Robertson and MacDonald.

There’s no definitive evidence that NZR is spending more on Robertson’s All Blacks than they did during Foster’s tenure.

There has been a slight rise in the overall headcount, with Foster having 22 people in his wider coaching/management team and Robertson, following the arrival of David Hill and Corey Flynn on part-time contracts, having 25 personnel in his group (24 now MacDonald has gone).

But in the current climate, where NZR lost almost $10 million last year and $47m the year before, and the provincial unions are being hit with a reduction in their distribution this year and next, the All Blacks retaining their budget from last year would be considered a considerable financial victory.

As further comparison and evidence of how hard it is for other parts of the game to win funding, Super Rugby Pacific clubs have not been able to secure increased budgets to hire additional medical personnel to reflect that their squad sizes have risen from 32 players to more than 50 during pre-season.

That NZR appears excessively focused on teams in black is further borne out by the expanded programmes that have been agreed for the New Zealand Under-20 team and the continued existence of the All Blacks XV, who will this year play in Ireland and Montpellier, France.

There is unanimous support across the rugby fraternity for these teams in black, as well as the Black Ferns and All Blacks, to have expanded, sustainable, meaningful programmes, but this is coming at a time when Super Rugby will be played next year with just 11 teams and no inkling at all as to what its future beyond next year will look like.

The only explanation offered to explain MacDonald’s departure after just five tests into a four-year contract has come from Robertson and Lendrum – with both men consistent that there was a fundamental difference in rugby philosophy and the best way to advance the All Blacks.

As Robertson put it: “Over a period of time coaching together we feel like it hasn’t quite clicked.”

Certainly, NZR wants that explanation to suffice – to be universally accepted as a divergence of professional views among two driven performers, and the sort of relationship breakdown that happens in workplaces across the country.

And there is no doubting the veracity of that explanation, but some more voices need to be heard in the coming weeks to provide more detail on the back story, and whether the relevant checks and balances that high-performance environments need to function effectively were all applied.