Gregor Paul: Why the All Blacks coaching structure needs a radical change

The All Blacks are about to radically transform again, and so should its coaching structure, writes Gregor Paul. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

As the Blues and Crusaders move inexorably closer to the Super Rugby Pacific final it is likely a new storyline will emerge where Leon MacDonald and Scott Robertson are touted as prospective rivals in a head-to-head race to secure the All Blacks head coaching role in 2024.

The All Blacks coaching dynamic has always been shaped like this – as an either-or contest - and whoever lands the role wins the right to populate their wider management team with their people.

MacDonald versus Robertson is an easy sell – teammates, to coaching buddies to rivals - it's all there.

But framing the coaching process as a direct contest between hand-picked individuals needs to be condemned as an archaic remnant of a world left behind.

It's a simple view of a more complex scenario and largely fails to appreciate the extent of what's involved in coaching the All Blacks these days.

More painfully, it fails to appreciate what the All Blacks are these days and how, if and most likely when a private equity deal with US investment firm Silver Lake is signed off, they are about to radically transform again.

The All Blacks are not a rugby team. They are a corporation, distinct and separate to New Zealand Rugby, answerable to multiple stakeholders and charged with delivering commercial returns as much as they are winning tests.

There is now about $60m of sponsorship investment plastered on their playing and training kit and the obligations that come with that are significant and time consuming.

Then there are all the other sponsors who need their pound of flesh, as well as broadcast partner Sky, the media and also community initiatives.

Institutions with high expectations have bought into the brand and they need the All Blacks to do their bit to leverage that investment. And leverage is not all extracted on the field: winning helps, but victories alone don't create marketing collateral, or shake hands with clients or sign autographs.

The All Blacks logo. Photo / Photosport

Internally, too, the machine has become quite the beast. It's typical now for the All Blacks to run with 36 players in a squad.

There are 15-plus coaches/managers and a wider, peripheral group of New Zealand Rugby staff who are connected to the team on a semi-permanent basis.

Maybe 20 years ago the head coach could turn up with a tracksuit, a whistle, two competent assistants, a good doctor, a smart gameplan and succeed as the All Blacks coach.

But not now and certainly not once Silver Lake come on board and effectively formalise the creation of All Blacks Inc where p&l will matter will more than w&l.

Part of the rationale for striking a deal with Silver Lake is that New Zealand professes to be the game's great innovator, a nation that sees the future before it happens.

And if New Zealand Rugby really is in possession of the crystal ball, then it should be able to see that its future All Blacks coaching structure and team has already presented itself.

The team now has such diverse and almost conflicting obligations that the idea of carving out a new role as All Blacks chief executive has undeniable merit.

Such is the number of stakeholders now and weight of pressure, the argument can be made that the head coach and players need a diplomatic, skilled, empathetic leader between themselves and the executive to act as a buffer.

This person needs to be both rugby and business savvy, understand the inner workings of the All Blacks and their high-performance needs and be aware of how commercial imperatives can impact upon these, yet also appreciate their importance to the overall health of the rugby ecosystem.

It's a role that head coach Ian Foster would be ideally suited to take on. His ability to stay calm, to present well to both the executive and playing group has been a massively underappreciated feature of his tenure to date.

Ian Foster. Photo / Photosport

He's also undeniably clued into the big picture, a real-world dweller who gets that money keeps the best players here and that the best players keep the All Blacks competitive.

This isn't rocket science and yet not all previous All Blacks coaches have behaved with that simple truth front of mind.

Maybe it will take some time yet for it to be universally recognised that Foster has had to do the job through a period of unprecedented difficulty which saw the players at odds with their employer over the initial Silver Lake proposal last year while trying to also manage through the endless disruptions brought by the pandemic.

As CEO of All Blacks Inc, Foster could have one foot in the board room, the other in the changing room and the friction between the playing and business sides of the national team could be lessened.

He would also ensure there is institutional knowledge banked in the system – knowledge that the coaching group could tap into and not always have to learn something is a bad idea the hard way.

And as for the make-up of the coaching group beneath him? Well, it's not either MacDonald or Robertson, but both, working with All Blacks technical director Joe Schmidt.

That's the dream set-up – Robertson, MacDonald and Schmidt working as a trio much like Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen did so successfully between 2004 and 2011, with Foster overseeing and mentoring them, while managing the wider obligations of the team.

Schmidt screams out as the likely head coach in this scenario with MacDonald and Robertson as assistants – a relatively safe place for them to learn the international game and the pressures and demands that come with it.

The additional benefit of having Foster in such a prominent role is that he could take some of the media and public pressure away from Schmidt who is thought not to have enjoyed the intense scrutiny he endured as head coach of Ireland.

A four-man team, reporting to a chief executive and led by a head coach is a modern structure for the modern All Blacks.