Timing of Leon MacDonald’s All Blacks exit raises more questions than it answers – Gregor Paul

THREE KEY FACTS

• Leon MacDonald will not continue his role as All Blacks attack coach, citing a disagreement on coaching approach with head coach Scott Robertson
• The news broke today, with the team heading to South Africa tomorrow
• Robertson and MacDonald coached together in the past at the Crusaders

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

The headlines say “shock departure”, but the surprise in Leon MacDonald’s resignation from his All Blacks assistant coaching position is more the timing, rather than the fact things haven’t worked out.

The relationship between MacDonald and head coach Scott Robertson always felt like it had a fragility to it and limited potential to go the distance through to the World Cup.

There was a bit of baggage in their history, a little uncertainty about whether they were professionally aligned and personally compatible, given the way MacDonald prematurely departed the Crusaders back in 2017 to unexpectedly pop up not so long after at the Blues.

There was an inconsistency to the messaging around that shift that never quite stacked up.

MacDonald, a former teammate of Robertson’s at the Crusaders, had been doing great things as the coach of Tasman.

That led to him joining Robertson’s Crusaders coaching staff in 2017 on a one-year contract with an option to extend it for another year.

But despite the Crusaders winning the title in 2017, MacDonald opted against staying in Christchurch, citing his desire to spend more time with his family in Tasman where his wife was running a business, and his children were at school.

In mid-2018, however, he announced he was relocating his family to Auckland as he was taking up an assistant role with the Blues.

The job in Auckland wasn’t a promotion – it was a sideways move, and one that came with upheaval that flew against the rationale given for quitting the Crusaders.

Leon MacDonald has left his post with the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport

The inconsistency of this shift is largely forgotten or never fully appreciated because he never ended up fulfilling the assistant role – he was unexpectedly and dramatically upgraded to head coach later that year when there was a change of ownership at the Blues.

History organically revised itself over time – the story of MacDonald’s shift to Auckland retrospectively being told as one where he left for greater opportunity and responsibility.

But for those who have never bought the repackaged narrative of ambitious assistant coach leaving the Crusaders to become a head coach at the Blues, there has long been a red flag flying over Robertson’s decision to invite MacDonald into his All Blacks coaching group.

The real story of assistant coach of title-winning Crusaders leaving for an assistant role at the basement-dwelling Blues always had a hint of there being some kind of philosophical misalignment between Robertson and MacDonald: a sense that they weren’t reading from the same coaching manual.

And so to have it confirmed by Robertson that he and MacDonald don’t see the game of rugby through the same lens and hold differing views about how to improve the All Blacks, is not the bombshell many might think it is.

This was a crack waiting to be prised open by the pressure of the job and the scrutiny of the All Blacks environment, and the chatter in well-connected circles has for some time speculated about how long MacDonald would last.

Few were expecting him to go through the full four-year cycle, but no one was anticipating he’d barely last four weeks, and the timing of MacDonald’s departure is genuinely shocking.

MacDonald's Blues side lost to Robertson's Crusaders in the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific semifinal. Photo / Photosport

Again, Robertson confirmed that he and MacDonald have been holding robust discussions for the last few weeks, suggesting that they have largely been in conflict – or not working well together – almost from the first day the All Blacks assembled.

And this begs the question of how they both failed to realise – especially given their history – that they were not professionally suited to work with another.

Did they miss the signs or simply choose to ignore them?

Were they both in denial about their compatibility, hoping they would be able to forge a working alliance for the greater good of the team, or was MacDonald always harbouring doubts about his ability to work with Razor but chose not to air them in case he discovered things had changed?

Or did they genuinely believe that they held a shared vision, only for something to have happened in the last few weeks to make them realise they don’t?

Certainly, it is incredible they have come to a mutual decision to part company after just five tests together – which suggests that regardless of who is to blame, the due diligence process of assessing their professional alignment prior to agreeing to work together was flawed and that the rift that has developed between them is considerable.

But while it is a major concern for the All Blacks that an assistant coach has walked out barely a few months into the job, both MacDonald and Robertson deserve kudos for dealing with the situation so swiftly and honestly.

Some coaches might have tried to limp along for a few more tests hoping to patch things up, but Robertson has brought matters to a head, made a strong decision and decided that it is better to fail fast rather than prolong an unsatisfactory situation that was likely spreading tension and uncertainty through the playing ranks.

Also, neither Robertson nor his employer have hidden behind the usual euphemistic nonsense of MacDonald wanting to spend more time with his family – but have instead confronted an inconvenient truth that they were not aligned.

It’s a big news moment for now, but the clinical nature in which this has been handled, should stop it from still being a big news moment for the months to come.