My girlfriend was in Christchurch last week, waiting at the airport departure gate before flying to Auckland, when she sent me an excited text.
“The Crusaders are here. All of them,” she said.
“Well, I think they are. I don’t know sports.”
She rang me a few minutes later,a bit star-struck for someone who supposedly didn’t care too much for rugby, to say that everyone at the airport was asking one guy in particular for photographs.
“You’re probably looking at the next All Blacks coach.”
Three days later, the deal was signed.
I don’t think there’s another coach in the country whose stardom compares to or even exceeds that of his top players, but Scott Robertson’s success has propelled him into a different stratosphere.
It isn’t just the fact that he wins that makes Robertson popular. It’s how he wins. And it’s always been the same. Rugby journos, players and colleagues rave about the culture he fosters in his team. In a pretty gruff and grunty world, Razor is distinguished by his earnest concern for people and the connections he’s able to make with his players. He’s quirky. A bit unorthodox. But everyone is left with no doubt that he genuinely cares. And as a result, quite aside from any skills or tactics, or anything specific to rugby, he’s proved incredibly successful in getting the best out of his people. It takes a special kind of leader to motivate a team when they win year, after year, after year.
It will remain an enduring stain on the reputation of New Zealand Rugby that the organisation’s head honchos could not extend the same basic human decency to the current All Blacks coach. I was trying to imagine how I’d feel if my boss announced to the world that he’d be kicking me off air and replacing me with someone else, but that first he’d expect me to perform to my highest level for the next six months. I can’t say I’d have acted with anything like the dignity and grace that Ian Foster has displayed throughout this whole fiasco.
Scott Robertson has yet to name his All Blacks coaching team for 2024. Photo / Photosport
I thought there was an especially telling moment in Mark Robinson’s media round this week, in which he admitted to not having even spoken with Ian Foster in person to tell him about appointing a replacement.
“We’ll try to reach out and have that chat if we can.”
Doesn’t that say everything? I was gobsmacked.
At the same time as they were choosing a candidate for the culture he instills in a team, New Zealand Rugby couldn’t even extend the decency of a conversation to the man he’s replacing. It doesn’t matter who you are or what industry you work in, international rugby, elite sport or accountancy for all I care, culture comes from the top. And the best cultures are the ones whose leaders care for their people.
