Somehow, even though professional rugby is almost 30 years old, a conservative bent has manifested in New Zealand, which has built a near-paranoid aversion to sacking underperforming coaches.
In the history of Super Rugby, no New Zealand club has fired a coach midway through a campaign.
Noone, it seems, has the stomach for that sort of brutality and, perhaps as a direct consequence of this professional squeamishness, an alternative narrative has developed, that New Zealand has become a world leader in high-performance best practices by ignoring external pressure to react and instead systemically adopting a patient approach to give coaches time to develop.
“Don’t panic and results will come” is the New Zealand mindset. Keep the faith, show support and a coach on a losing streak will ultimately turn it around.
This certainly seemed to be the general theme being struck by Crusaders chief executive Colin Mansbridge when he spoke with Newstalk ZB.
The Crusaders currently sit bottom of the table and, having produced arguably their worst performance in the last two decades in Perth, there has been media commentary speculating how long head coach Rob Penney can last in the role.
Of course there has, because the Crusaders have lost their attacking shape entirely, their set-piece defence has crumbled, their tactical kicking is woeful and a scrum and lineout that have been both offensive and defensive weapons for a decade are malfunctioning.
Crusaders head coach Rob Penney has come under fire for the side's poor performances. Photo / Photosport
The Crusaders have quite obviously been impacted by losing key players from last year to overseas contracts and by a horrendous injury toll, but this can’t be used to explain their lack of structure and strategic appreciation.
No matter who is on the field, they should still have the ability to understand and implement a cohesive game plan, and the media should be given enough credit for being able to identify a shambles when they see one.
So too can the media do their research and see that, while Penney enjoyed success earlier in his career, his time at Munster and in Japan with Shining Arcs didn’t provide an evidential basis of such overwhelming success as to be blown away by his credentials.
More pertinently, his time at the Waratahs in 2020 and 2021 provided reason for concern as he was sacked 18 months into a three-year contract, in which he coached the side to just five wins in 19 games.
Nor has anyone in the media missed the fact that the Waratahs have beaten the Crusaders twice this year.
Given, then, the current table placement of the Crusaders, their abject awfulness these past few weeks and Penney’s recent history, it would surely be considered prudent analysis to question whether the defending champions are set up to succeed and whether they can afford to persevere with a coaching structure that has shown little to no ability so far to translate into performance.
This is not a personal attack, but a necessary role of the media who are asked to be the voice of the fans who invest their time and money in their favourite clubs.
However, Mansbridge has not only rubbished the validity of the media’s thinking but, worse, he’s had a Winston Peters moment and rubbished the validity of the media itself by suggesting anyone who thinks that the Crusaders should fire their coach is “childish”.
“I don’t mind it from fans because they are emotionally invested in it,” he said. “But from commentators, I think it’s childish, frankly. When you see those things happen overseas, you don’t see improvements in results, that’s the fact.”
This is professional sport – the ultimate results-based business – and when a team that has won seven successive championships finds itself rooted to the bottom of the table and being torn apart by the Western Force, it’s hardly a wild conspiracy theory or juvenile response to question whether the head coach is doing a good job.
It’s the same way that, when the share price of a previously well-performed listed company starts to tank under the guidance of a new chief executive, some shareholders may raise questions about the competency and strategic approach being adopted.
Mansbridge might be right that, if they stick with Penney, the Crusaders could yet come good, get a few key players back from injury, win some games, sneak into the playoffs and who knows from there, but that doesn’t mean the media are wrong to be asking questions about whether a coaching change is needed now.
This need to invalidate the media is a bigger problem than it may appear as Super Rugby needs authentic coverage by the fourth estate to put the fan at the centre of the game.
As Mansbridge admitted, most Crusaders fans are calling for a coaching change. Yet, when the media does the same thing and reflects the mood of the terraces, it’s considered “childish”?
Super Rugby has been going almost three decades and, in New Zealand, reasoned analysis, articulate and well-researched commentaries and valid opinions are rubbished by those who simply don’t like the points that are made.
