Phil Gifford: What Crusaders coach Scott Robertson's two paths really look like

Cheree Kinnear is joined by Newstalk ZB’s Kate Wells as they look at Hurricanes vs Rebels in Super Rugby Trans-Tasman, Breakers play their second home game vs the Kings, plus more. Video / NZ Herald

OPINION:

The immediate coaching future of Scott Robertson is likely to be formally announced next week. In Christchurch there's an overwhelming belief we'll then discover that he's not heading overseas.

If he stays with the Crusaders he will be again taking his own path, as he does when he dances after victories or allows that the Crusaders are "disliked immensely" by rivals. In 2018 he told me that driving to Rugby Park to work with the Crusaders "always puts me in a good mood", and that never seems to have changed.

What he may never do is take the Graham Henry/Steve Hansen/Dave Rennie path and head overseas to coach an international team.

There's no question that he could almost write his own cheque in Britain. When London's rugby media bayed for Eddie Jones' blood after the England team had an abysmal Six Nations, the name on every keyboard as a suggested replacement for Jones was Robertson. Sir Clive Woodward told Martin Devlin he'd have "no qualms at all" about Robertson taking over. The Daily Telegraph, the paper of choice for retired Army officers and rugger chaps in England, was unequivocal, "We need the Razor."

The moot point is whether the Razor needs England, or any other northern team to advance his career. I'd suggest he doesn't.

For a start Robertson isn't some starry eyed kid who feels ill at ease once he's driven over the causeway out of his home suburb of Sumner.

Crusaders coach Scott Robertson celebrates his team winning with a beak dancing session on the field. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

In fact, he has a view of the rugby world that's not even remotely insular. For a start he spent the last years of his playing career at the Ards club in Northern Ireland, at Perpignon in France, and with the Ricoh Black Rams in Japan.

Then there was the lateral, open thinking that saw him bring Irishman Ronan O'Gara into the coaching team at the Crusaders.

How international was the O'Gara connection? The geography reads like a Jason Bourne novel. A connection is made in Paris between O'Gara and Dan Carter. Carter reports back to headquarters in Christchurch. The deal is sealed between Robertson and O'Gara over dinner in a Dublin restaurant.

More importantly, the selection of Ian Foster as All Black coach ahead of Robertson did not, I'm reliably informed, hinge on any lack of off-shore coaching experience. After all, all of Foster's coaching overseas had actually been with the All Blacks.

The vote for Foster was for someone who had been inside the All Black camp, as Foster had since 2012, who therefore offered continuity, and, given his equable personality, a sense of security.

Robertson, in every sense was the outlier for the NZR, sparking with so much energy he's basically a one man national electricity grid. In the last 50 years I can personally vouch for the fact that no All Black coach has been anything like him. That fact alone may have scared off some on New Zealand Rugby's selection panel.

There have been some terrific All Black coaches but from Jack Gleeson, who led the first Grand Slam All Blacks in Britain in 1978, to Brian Lochore, Graham Henry, and Steve Hansen, who won World Cups, you could safely mortgage your house and bet every cent that you'd never see any of them dancing after a win.

Head Coach Scott Robertson of the Crusaders looks on during warmup prior to the round four Super Rugby Aotearoa match. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

The nearest to an eccentric All Black coach was JJ Stewart, who took over the team in 1974. JJ was an academic, an agricultural professor at Flock House near Bulls, who had a lightning wit, and a gift for scatological language that would have made Billy Connelly blush. I was once loudly greeted by him in the dining room of a Hamilton hotel in terms that almost caused a mass attack of the vapours at a table of mature women eating lunch nearby.

What will decide the future now for Foster and Robertson will be as transparent and straight forward as how the 2021 All Black season plays out.

Foster's contract is up for consideration at the end of this year. If his team has gone well it'd be surprising if he wasn't signed again, through to the 2023 World Cup.

On the other hand, too many glitches like the losses in Australia last year, and Robertson may be the first diehard surfer to ever run the All Blacks.