Rugby: North Harbour's coaches pay price for poor season

Craig Dowd. Photo / Greg Bowker

North Harbour's silver anniversary season has been blighted by another coaching mess.

Widespread reviews held with the players, management and staff drew the decision to advertise the senior coaches' roles filled by Craig Dowd and Jeff Wilson for the last two seasons.

"It was a tough decision but that is the role of the board," chairman John Morgan said.

Harbour finished 11th in this year's ITM Cup following their 12th place finish in Dowd and Wilson's initial season with the province.

Morgan would not go into any specifics about the decision to overlook the pair for the last year of their contract, but other sources said Dowd and his assistant had not reached the necessary performance criteria.

There had also been some tension between the former All Blacks who formed a coaching alliance after Dowd returned from Wasps and Wilson shifted from Otago.

Harbour's board had discussed the duo's performance before the final match in the ITM Cup and then held another review once that series was over. There was a unanimous recommendation to advertise their jobs for the 2011 campaign.

"The side and everyone have not performed as well as we would have liked at ITM Cup level," said Morgan.

The union had done some fine work in other areas but the provincial results had not been satisfactory.

"If you don't meet a certain threshhold then that triggers off areas that makes the job contestable," said Morgan.

Harbour would advertise the positions, for which they had received more than 20 applicants last time in a bid to succeed coach Wayne Pivac.

"If you have aspirations to be a coach of a semi-professional team, there aren't many jobs available in the world," said Morgan.

"In New Zealand we have 14 ITM unions and the five Super franchises and we are famous for not only producing players, referees and a plethora of outstanding coaches, and, I have no doubt, there will be a number of people applying for these positions.

"This is a board decision, it is not a staff decision at all. Obviously the chief executive [Brett Hollister] reports to the board and we get his views, but we had a very comprehensive review process with external input.

"But it was a board decision in the end," Morgan added.