Former Fiji coach Vern Cotter has taken over as the Blues boss. Photo / Photosport
Former Fiji coach Vern Cotter has taken over as the Blues boss. Photo / Photosport
OPINION
Phil Gifford runs through three Super Rugby talking points, while a sporting landmark finds peace.
What’s the secret?
The secret of the success of the Crusaders in Super Rugby, Robbie Deans said when he was in the midst of coaching them to five titles, is that “there is noone secret. But there are many elements. Some you retain, some you have to modify”.
For a quarter of a century the Crusaders have held dear to one element, the rugby history of the region. In 1997, Wayne Smith and Peter Sloane asked 1970s All Black captain, the unyielding forward Tane Norton, to speak to their squad. Sloane recalls Norton saying, “God you boys are playing well. You’re playing as though you love each other.” Said Sloane: “When a hard-nosed guy like Tane used that word ‘love’, it’s got some real power.”
Of course the startling record of the Crusaders hasn’t been won just on Ted Lasso-style warmth and unity. But you can bet that new coach Rob Penney, a former Canterbury captain and then four-time title-winning Canterbury coach, won’t shy away from evoking the team’s legacy.
Pride in who you stand for also worked for the Chiefs, who under Dave Rennie embraced Tainui heritage as they won the 2012 and 2013 titles.
There’s a strange, but somehow warming, dichotomy in the fact that in the cold-eyed world of gambling, two teams that don’t shy away from evoking a family spirit in their squads are ranked as favourites by the TAB for Super Rugby Pacific next year, the Crusaders at $3 and the Chiefs at $3.50.
Docking visits seem unlikely
Meanwhile, the Blues have, in Vern Cotter, one of the most interesting coaches in rugby.
Cotter’s a former Bay of Plenty farmer. In his first major coaching role, with the Bay, he took an unheralded side to Eden Park in 2004 and they won the Ranfurly Shield from Auckland.
During that year city-based journalists like me were fascinated by stories of how Cotter occasionally took members of his squad out to his farm to help with docking lambs. “Always ring me in the afternoon,” he told me at the time. “In the mornings I’m feeding out.”
In the decades since, coaching has taken Cotter far from the heartland life.
He’s worked all over the world. In France, with Clermont and Montpellier, as the head coach of Scotland, and then Fiji, and in Christchurch, as forward coach of the Crusaders.
What he’ll offer the Blues is surely the confidence and knowledge that comes from vast experience. He won titles in France, and with the Crusaders. Of all the stories in Super Rugby next year, how Cotter shapes the Blues may be the most riveting.
If you’re a believer in history repeating, the last time the Blues won Super Rugby, in 2003, their coach was Peter Sloane. Sloane, like Cotter, had previously won two titles as Crusaders forward coach.
Sam Whitelock will be among the big names missing. Photo / Getty Images
Stars need to shine
The pressure on Super Rugby in 2024 with the exodus of so many leading All Blacks after the World Cup is huge.
In 2007, the competition took a body blow it’s never quite recovered from when 24 All Blacks were withdrawn from the first five weeks of play as part of a reconditioning fitness programme for the World Cup at the end of the year. Sky viewing figures plummeted 29 per cent.
Next year, the loss of key men like Sam Cane, Ardie Savea, Aaron Smith, Richie Mo’unga, Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Codie Taylor, Shannon Frizell and Beauden Barrett is deeply concerning too.
What’s hugely needed is a series of early, exciting games. It’s hopefully a good omen that the first game in round robin sees the Chiefs playing the Crusaders in Hamilton.
Letting the sunshine in
I’m not a born and bred Cantabrian, but I have a host of fond memories of Lancaster Park, from watching cinema newsreels in 1962 of Peter Snell smashing the world 800 metres and 880 yards records there, to sitting astounded in the stand as the 2002 Crusaders beat the second-placed team in that year’s Super Rugby round robin, the Waratahs, 96-17.
Driving past the ravaged ground since the 2011 earthquake has been a melancholy experience, so it was a wonderful on Saturday to be there for the opening of the refurbished Memorial Gates, and the unveiling of 12 fascinating panels in an Arc of History by local heroes like Robbie Deans, Dan Carter, Sir Richard Hadlee and Scott Robertson.
In brilliant sunshine the backdrop to the ceremonies was provided by kids playing cricket on the freshly grassed field. Call me sentimental, but after 12 years in limbo the great old park felt at peace.
