This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including investigating the state of our mental health in the Great Minds series, how NZ can rebuild stronger post-Covid with The New New Zealand and how to minimise the impact of living in an Inflation Nation.
We also tackled our literacy crisis in our Reading Block series, while dogged investigative reporting by Kate McNamara resulted in an investigation into the awarding of contracts to businesses associated with family members of Cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta.
This summer we’re bringing back some of the best-read Premium articles of 2022. Today we take a look at life inside the All Blacks machine.
The dramatic real reasons Ian Foster wasn’t axed as coach
When Handre Pollard converted a last-minute try to push the score out to 26-10, the 43,000 South Africans at Mbombela Stadium on August 7 knew they had witnessed the Springboks inflict one of the most comprehensive defeats the All Blacks had suffered.
Yet, head coach Ian Foster said: “I felt it was probably our most improved performance this year. I felt in some areas we really shifted our game forward.”
This desire to spin a positive narrative was understandable, as the All Blacks head coach was fighting to save his job and the loss forced New Zealand Rugby to make a big decision.
Gregor Paul details how events played out and why New Zealand Rugby chose to stay with Ian Foster.
What it takes to coach the All Blacks in the modern age
One story has dominated the sporting year, and all anyone who follows the All Blacks has asked in 2022, is whether the team has the right man at the helm.
But it’s a question that is decidedly harder to answer than it may seem, as the All Blacks head coaching role is among the most misunderstood in New Zealand.
The public and media lens through which they see the All Blacks head coaching role is narrow, focused exclusively on the training ground and what it takes to succeed is often underestimated.
Everyone who has coached the All Blacks, however, knows the complexities of this job run deep, that the demands are exhaustive and the brief of producing a winning rugby team can’t be fulfilled by sticking on a tracksuit, grabbing a whistle and making sure that 15 oversized men know which number jersey to stick on and in which direction to run.
Gregor Paul looks at what the role really looks like in the modern age.
The secret to dealing with the media
International rugby has a profound sense of the dramatic, operating as it does in the two separate, but connected theatres of the stadium and the media conference.
A head coach, particularly the one in charge of the All Blacks, has to be equally comfortable and adept in both theatres: as capable of delivering a sharp, agenda-setting one-liner as they are a damaging rolling maul.
A test match is no longer just about the 80 minutes. So much can be influenced before the two teams meet and a coach that is serious about his side’s preparation has to be capable of controlling the narrative.
What is said, when, how and by whom, is a big part of the test build-up. Referees, fans and the opposition are all susceptible to reacting to what they read and hear: of being unduly affected by certain comments if they are smart, cutting or inflammatory, and manipulating the media is an integral part of the head coaching role.
It’s not an optional extra these days – the head coach needs a media strategy, a deeply considered means to get certain points across that benefit their team or sell an idea to a wider audience.
Gregor Paul looks at how Ian Foster should handle the media.
The real reason Razor is not All Blacks coach
There was a time earlier this year when Scott Robertson believed he was going to be in the UK in November, not with the Barbarians, but as head coach of the All Blacks.
For a week in August, he had every reason to believe he was going to take over coaching the All Blacks once they returned from South Africa.
He had been contacted by New Zealand Rugby after the All Blacks had lost to the Springboks in Mbombela on August 7.
It was the All Blacks’ fifth loss in their last six tests and NZR chief executive Mark Robinson’s faith in Foster was fading.
Firing Foster was starting to look like the easiest and most effective way of appeasing the commercial heavyweights.
And bringing in Robertson would have been a populist move.
Robertson is a free-thinking, unrestricted, breath-of-fresh-air, authentic character. But, in the eyes of the All Blacks, that’s not always a good thing. I
Gregor Paul looks at the complicated relationship between Razor and New Zealand Rugby.
Inside the fiercely debated decision on All Blacks’ coaching future
Timing and process will be everything when it comes to deciding who should coach the All Blacks in 2024.
Getting these right is something New Zealand Rugby has historically struggled with and the question of when, how and for how long to appoint the next coach is one being fiercely debated at the highest levels of the national body.
The importance of choosing the right coaching team has never been greater, as there has never been so much investment riding on the All Blacks continuing to be successful.
Nor has there ever been so much scrutiny on coaching teams — modern rugby having become fixated with their power and influence and the allegiance of fans seemingly linked to how they feel about the people at the helm of the All Blacks.
Gregor Paul looks at the most important decision facing the national body in the next 12 months.
