Christian Cullen: Umaga looks perfect fit if Blues job comes up

Tana Umaga would command the respect of the players. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

I have been following what might be happening at the Blues next year and think Tana Umaga would make a pretty good go of the coaching job if he was to have a crack.

I'm not saying Sir John Kirwan should move on or that Tana should be given the job — only that if Tana was to apply, I reckon he'd have a positive impact at the Blues.

He's taken his time in building his coaching career. He hasn't been in any rush and look how successful he's been with Counties-Manukau. He knows the game, knows the region and, importantly, he is from a Pacific Island background.

He has the mana and will command the respect of the players, which is vital.

Whether he wants to commit ... only he knows. He seems happy doing what he's doing at Counties and with the New Zealand under-20 team.

It's a different scale of commitment to take on a Super Rugby role and Tana would have to be sure he was ready for it.

I guess at some stage he'd like to coach the All Blacks. Doesn't everyone who gets into coaching? And if that is his goal, a Super Rugby job would be a good place to be.

I'd have to say coaching never really appealed to me. Players usually know when they are still playing whether it's something they think they want to get into and something they think they could be good at.

I never really felt like that towards the end of my playing days. I quite like doing a bit of one-on-one work with, say, fullbacks or outside backs. I do a bit of that at IRANZ and enjoy it.

But to be a coach of a team ... that's a different thing altogether. That's a full-on commitment and all-consuming. I offered to help out at club level on the coaching front but even that was a massive commitment.

It's not just the time commitment, though. Anyone who gets into coaching is going to have to be OK with the fact that when the team is winning, the players will get all the credit.

And when the team is losing, the coach gets all the blame.

That's just how it is. Then there would be the frustration of sitting in the box each week and wondering why certain players are doing certain things — wondering how it is players can't see the space you can from up in the box or why they didn't make just one more pass.

Or why a player was over the tryline — and decided to touch down with one hand and drop the ball!

All that kind of stuff would take an emotional toll but someone like Tana knows that and seems to be able to accept it.