Scott Robertson will need loyalty, at every level of our rugby. Photo / Photosport
Scott Robertson will need loyalty, at every level of our rugby. Photo / Photosport
OPINION
Scott Robertson’s energy, innovative thinking and passion for coaching will be brutally tested next year.
For a start, he’ll face a rebuilding of the All Blacks on a scale that harks back to the end of 2015, when six first-choice World Cup-winning All Blacks Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma’aNonu, Conrad Smith, Tony Woodcock and Keven Mealamu retired from test rugby.
Whether the All Blacks win or lose at the World Cup in France the list of those leaving will include key veterans like Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock and Aaron Smith, and others Robertson might have hoped to have available, notably Richie Mo’unga and Leicester Fainga’anuku.
What makes Robertson’s task so tough are the expectations Kiwis put on the All Blacks.
There’s no slack allowed for an All Blacks coach. We want success, and we want it now.
As it happens Robertson has a man in Wayne Smith, now an official mentor, who can offer advice from first-hand experience on how to deal with the backlash sparked by anything other than a triumphant start to a tenure.
Former Black Ferns and All Blacks coach Wayne Smith. Photo / Photosport
When Smith took over the All Blacks in 2000 they were smarting from a semifinal loss to France in the 1999 World Cup.
Smith would lose his job after just two seasons, when, in a stunning generational clash, a committee of old-school retired players and coaches felt he lacked passion for the job.
His sin? He’d told them he wanted to go on, but he wasn’t absolutely sure if he was the best man to be coach. “I thought they wanted me to be honest,” he’d tell me at the time.
Smith’s support came from family and friends, and English club Northampton, who seized the chance to have a man now recognised as not a good but a great coach take control.
What Robertson, for all his boundless enthusiasm, and network of family and supporters, will also need is loyalty at every level of our rugby.
He will get it from his players.
He’s proved year after year with the Crusaders that he can win the hearts and minds of today’s professional players.
The grouches who moan about his breakdancing after Super Rugby wins don’t seem to notice that while they’re channelling Homer Simpson’s father and shaking a fist at the sky, his players are loving the joy he brings to the moment.
That attitude isn’t a happy accident. “Razor makes every day enjoyable,” a current All Black has sworn to me.
There also needs to be public and clear support from New Zealand Rugby.
It’d be fair to say that Ian Foster’s term has been marked by some prevarication from NZR. To be fair, commenting after All Blacks losses is a minefield for NZR chief executive Mark Robinson as he doesn’t have unilateral power to keep or sack a coach.
All Blacks head coach Ian Foster and NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson. Photo / Photosport
But there’s clearly been a divide between headquarters in Wellington and Foster since February, when Foster said appointing the coach for 2024 before the World Cup was “potentially a distraction to the players”.
Trust between the coach and NZR will always involve some fragility. But given the huge task of regeneration Robertson faces, NZR making damned sure he knows his role is definitely 100 per cent guaranteed for four years is vital — not for four years if the first two years go okay. The man has enough to think about without having to worry about covering his back.
Dealing with the media as an All Black coach will be magnified enormously compared with the role as spokesman for the Crusaders.
Robertson — open, quirky and often genuinely amusing — has been dealing with a press corps in Christchurch who like him, and don’t set traps.
It would still be worth considering taking a leaf from Steve Hansen’s playbook, and looking for expert media advice outside the NZR bubble.
When he first took over from Graham Henry as All Blacks coach in 2012, Hansen battled to not snap at questions he didn’t like. Clips of the surly reaction, without showing the provocative question, made unsettling television viewing.
At the urging of then NZR chief executive Steve Tew, Hansen spent time with former television legend Ian Fraser.
It worked. Hansen developed a technique, one brilliantly used by former Prime Minister John Key, of grinning or joking at a barbed question.
After a 22-0 victory over Australia in August 2012, Hansen neatly defused a loaded question by smiling and saying: “Jeez, why don’t you give me a rope and let me put it round my neck?”
They won’t need to teach Robertson to smile, but a gentle reminder that, especially when he’s in Britain, there will be piranhas with micro recorders keen to misconstrue a light-hearted quip, wouldn’t go amiss.
