Gumboots, cows and coaches

By LINDSAY KNIGHT

If you look at a top rugby coach and ask, "Didn't he play for Waikato not long ago?", there's a good chance the answer will be yes. Waikato head coach Ian Foster, whose team has made the NPC final in his first year in the position, was playing in the team as their first five-eighth as recently as 1998.


And he is just one of several former Waikato players, from the late 80s and early 90s, who as relatively young men have already achieved coaching distinction.


From the Waikato side which in 1992 beat Otago to win the first NPC final there are, for instance, John Mitchell, who became All Black coach last year at age 37, Warren Gatland, now coaching the Wasps in England and until last year Ireland's international coach, and Foster.


Others from the '92 Waikato squad who have become coaches include halfback Kevin Putt, who that year returned to South Africa where he is now coaching the Sharks in the Super 12, midfield back Rhys Ellison, now coaching in Ireland, fullback Andrew Strawbridge and flanker Tom Coventry, this year the coaches of the Waikato NPC and Chiefs development teams, and lock Steve Gordon, player-coach of the Taupiri club side.


To add to this formidable list, several others from Waikato sides between the late-70s and the mid-90s have either had teams or have become specialist skills coaches. This group includes last year's Waikato NPC coach Kiwi Searancke, present Chiefs coach Kevin Greene, Manu Samoa's John Boe, present Waikato NPC manager Glenn Ross, and the specialists Daryl Halligan and Matthew Cooper (goalkicking) and Richard Loe (scrummaging).


Compare this with the Auckland sides of around the same eras. For all the successes Waikato enjoyed, especially in the early 90s, they were overshadowed by their Auckland contemporaries.


Yet with the exception of Grant Fox and, to a lesser extent, John Kirwan and Zinzan Brooke, few of those outstanding Auckland players have, as yet, had significant coaching careers.


Foster agrees that one factor may be that while most of these Auckland players were superstars, few of the Waikato players of the same era were long-term All Blacks.


Foster, while probably in the top five or six first-fives for most of his playing days, never became an All Black and Mitchell and Gatland, though going on tour with the All Blacks, never gained test honours. These two in particular, in the mid-90s, had probably seen as an ideal career path the chance to go to Britain and gain coaching positions as compensation for never having been test players.


"Those Auckland teams of the late-80s to mid-90s weren't just the best in New Zealand," Foster says. "They were the best in the world.


"They had so many superstars who were world class. Perhaps after that they felt the need to do other things, not necessarily in coaching.


"To be honest, I don't think there is anything about Waikato that is unique. There are other unions with much the same set-ups and philosophies. I don't think that so many of us have gone into coaching and had success is anything to do with the water we drink here."


Nor is there what might be called a Waikato coaching philosophy on which every Mooloo rugby man agrees. Foster says that during his playing days there were fierce in-house arguments as to which style Waikato should follow.


This was especially so in the early-90s under the coaching of Glenn Ross. The big Waikato pack of the the time, led by Mitchell, Gatland, Loe and Graham Purvis, placed great emphasis on rolling mauls which, under the law then, when stopped simply gave the team going forward the scrum feed. Frequently, backs such as Foster were ignored much more than they liked.


But Foster believes that the methods Waikato used in this period may have strengthened some perceptions among the national media of Waikato being forward-obsessed and lacking flair.


He is convinced Waikato have not always received their due for having innovation.


"I've always remembered a TV interview done by John McBeth with John Hart before the NPC final of 1992," he says. "Hart said Waikato's best chance of winning would be to slow the game down, but if it became fast and open Otago would run away with it. But as it happened we ran Otago off the field that day." (The final score was 40-5.)


Foster has no doubts that being consistently underrated by the national media has been a Waikato advantage. So, too, has a strong sense of history, and Foster is aware that he has been preceded by many fine coaches, from Dick Everest, the architect of Waikato's first Ranfurly Shield era of 1951-53, and George Simpkin of the early-80s.


So that the present players would be aware of the basic values of Waikato rugby, Foster has added one of the famous Clarke brothers of Morrinsville to his management team of Ross (manager), the dynamic flanker Duane Monkley (assistant manager) and assistant coach Farrell Temata .


This is Brian Clarke, who played 70 matches for Waikato in the 60s as a flanker, and who with his brothers Ian, Don, Doug and Graeme tallied 408 games for Waikato.


"This union has been built on a lot of tradition and it is important to have that strong foundation because it gives your team a soul," Foster says. "But at the same time every team from whatever era will add its own special flavour to that tradition."


Matthew Cooper, who finished playing in 1999 with a record 1604 points from 124 games for Waikato, is not surprised many players from the province have become coaches.


Glenn Ross, when he became coach in 1989, had introduced many new ideas and modern techniques and these had been followed by all of Waikato's succeeding coaches.


"In that 1992 side guys like Mitch [John Mitchell], Gats [Warren Gatland] and Fossie [Ian Foster] were all major contributors and all had leadership qualities," Cooper says. And the team itself was blessed with many who have gone on to successful business and professional careers.


"We had a lot of good thinkers in the team. And without exception everyone has been passionate about Waikato rugby."


While Ross introduced a modern approach to Waikato coaching, Cooper believes that John Boe (who coached Waikato in 1995-98) and Foster deserve considerable credit for having consolidated what is now a powerful culture.


In 1994 Waikato, having achieved the 1992 NPC win and the 1993 Ranfurly Shield win over Auckland, went into decline because many players such as Mitchell, Loe and Brent Anderson had moved on or were past their best.


But in 1995 Boe rebuilt the side, introducing many new players, among them the present captain Deon Muir, Scott McLeod and Aaron Hopa, who was tragically killed in late 1998. So swift was the recovery that in 1997 Waikato again won the shield from Auckland and in that year lost only two games, both to Counties-Manukau.


Foster added superb vision and organisational skills and his analysis of both his side and opposition and use of every available resource left nothing to chance.


Ross believes an important start in developing Waikato coaching came in the early 80s, when he was on the staff of Hamilton Boys' High School.


From his first XVs of that decade came a host of players who became heavily involved in coaching: Gatland, Ellison, Coventry, Strawbridge, Halligan, Stu Gemmell and Warren Jennings, who this year had the Waikato colts side.


Like Foster, Ross believes Waikato have not been recognised for their lateral thinking and enterprise, which had been shown long ago by coaches such as Everest and Simpkin. At Matamata College when he had been a teacher, Simpkin had developed the talents of the Taylor brothers, Murray and Warwick, and introduced flat passing to his backlines.


Everest, too, was responsible for a great coaching coup before Waikato's legendary win in 1956 in the opening match of the Springbok tour. In a trial match before that game Everest had caused great controversy by suddenly switching a loose forward, Rex Pickering, to play on the wing.


Everest did so as a precaution because in those years international rules did not allow replacements even for injury. As it happened, a Waikato back was injured and Pickering had to play all of the match as a wing. He did so successfully, scoring a try in the 14-10 win.


Ross believes having a rural image has not necessarily harmed Waikato rugby. "I think we have always had an understanding that we need to do the basics well, and that if we are to have success we rely on hard graft, a committed effort and considerable work ethics."