Ian Foster is a level headed bloke. He has to be under the unblinking eye of public opinion. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
Who remembers 2015/16, when the talkback lines ran hot around the tedium of watching the All Blacks dominate the world?
The All Blacks had been World Cup holders for consecutive cycles, the number one ranked team globally for what seemed an age, a coach at the top of his
game, a group of 'once in a generation' players. This, at the time, was packaged as boring. Predictable.
The arrogance of the Kiwi rugby supporter was in full bloom. Our Super Rugby was a superior product. Our want to entertain, to run the ball from anywhere and often score, was an example of the New Zealand way, leaving the grind of northern hemisphere rugby in the rear-view mirror.
Stretching back to the 2011 World Cup campaign, we enjoyed a freakish run of results, so comfortable we were in our supporters' skins, that when the party stopped at the semifinal stage of the 2019 event, in a rare show of altruism, All Black fans ceded that the loss to the English was good for the game. We didn't freak out. We'd had a good run, let's reset with a new coach and the rightful order will be restored.
To many, an act of hubris saw New Zealand Rugby carry on with their succession plan, which had worked a treat since 2011. A carefully planned and managed power transition would ensure that 2019 was a judder bar for the All Blacks juggernaut, not a dead end. Ian Foster would take the throne even though the barbarian at the gate, Scott Robertson, was riding high on extraordinary Super Rugby results and effervescent public support.
Covid then reared its head and threw everything into a spin cycle, rugby included. New coach Foster did the best he could under extremely trying conditions, eventually enough to retain the role until 2023. But the charitable murmurs out of the 2019 English loss had now turned to widespread derision for NZR's master plan.
The tsunami of rage, building throughout 2021, broke after the French loss. The All Blacks aura was washed away, the chasing pack had flooded the All Blacks, the fans washed out to sea in the final surge.
Cue the blamestorming. The media, the fanbase, the person in the street let rip the only way they know how. Bloodletting. Which as we know, is entirely unhelpful. Foster is the coach, and will remain so until 2023.
Ian Foster is a level headed bloke. He has to be under the unblinking eye of public opinion.
He now faces the biggest challenge of his coaching career, one I expect he was anticipating with the way he managed the All Blacks through 2021.
There was a time when the national side were peerless in the down cycle of the Rugby World Cup. Yet like clockwork, the team dropped their bundle when it really mattered. 1987 to 2011 is a long time to play perennial pretender. No-one cares how good the All Blacks were if they didn't bring home Bill. The World Cup, like it or not, was the true measure of global rugby pre-eminence. It still is.
This season Foster has found himself in a position where he lacked a solid roster of genuine superstars. He was neck deep in Covid uncertainty, he didn't have the backing of the country. Nor did he have the results. What he did have is the contract, the faith of NZR and a target: Rugby World Cup 2023.
Everything he has tried, every combination, every positional dalliance, every tactical technique is with an eye to 2023. He was handed a ridiculous schedule, one without rest, nor respite and dealt with it as well as he and his team could.
It's too simple, but very tempting to take an easy route and lash out at the most obvious target. By all means, vent, but understand that Foster has a complex task at hand. The All Blacks have no divine right to be the best team in the world. They are a constant target from a slew of nations who have reached a point where they are now no longer a sideshow in the game.
The competition is real. The world has caught up.
If there is ever a right time to show vulnerability, it's now. The true test of Foster as a coach comes over the next two years. I'll take these humbling defeats if the wash-up is a team that plays its hand when it matters, not at the end of an ill-fated, overly long Northern tour.