Source: Radio New Zealand
A former All Blacks captain says New Zealand Rugby was left with no option but to sack Scott Robertson.
The coach’s reign came to an end after just two years in the top job following a less than favourable internal review.
NZR’s chair David Kirk said they took on a wide range of opinions before making the decision.
Former New Zealand skipper Taine Randell said Robertson’s removal comes after significant changes made by the board – and they’re changes that couldn’t have happened sooner.
“I was very shocked … but it’s not unprecedented to sack All Black coaches, he told Morning Report.
“I was playing in 2001 when Wayne Smith had his tenure cut very short, but I think … if you look at what’s been happening at the New Zealand union over the last 12 months, it hasn’t really been talked about.
Scott Robertson’ reign as All Blacks coach came to an end after just two years. Photo: Marty Melville
“I think Razor’s removal is just the latest in a number of massive changes that have occurred at New Zealand Rugby that signal that actually, ‘hey look, the New Zealand Rugby Union that we have today is a very different beast to the one we had 12 months ago’ and to be perfectly honest, it couldn’t have happened soon enough.”
Randell said NZR had been in a funk over the past seven years, and all indicators suggested there was disillusionment with the game in New Zealand.
He said there had been a lot of issues between NZR and the provinces.
What next for the All Blacks, and who could take over as coach?
“As a result of that, we’ve ended up in February with a new chairman. They say a fish rots from the head,” Randell said.
“Well, with Dame Patsy Reddy, my personal thing, she did quite a bit of damage to New Zealand Rugby and then she fell out with a lot of our stakeholders, as did the rugby union.
“In result, David Kirk was the new chairman. Now, since then, we were looking for a new CEO because the CEO has essentially been removed. That’s a big call.
“Last week, head of high performance has basically gone … those things don’t happen in a vacuum. But as a result, I believe that the changes that we’ve had at the top and the most recent change that we’ve got, we’ve got to have a new coach.”
Randell said while Robertson’s win record as All Blacks coach was 74 percent, the performances weren’t good enough.
Taine Randell playing for the All Blacks in 2002. Photo: © Photosport Ltd 2002 www.photosport.nz
He said the internal review pointed to a culture problem in the All Blacks set up, which led to record-breaking defeats.
“If you have a good culture of the team, you do not have two of your leading assistant coaches leave,” Randell said.
“If the culture of the team is going well, actually, irrespective of win, lose or draw, which the All Blacks you should win, at least the performance of the team should give you some encouragement that they’re on the right track and if you’ve got a good culture of the team, you don’t have colossal losses to the Springboks.”
Randell said losses to nations like Ireland and Argentina had become commonplace, which also pointed to a “terrible” culture.
He said it was easy to determine if things were going well, and Kirk had put it right by sacking Robertson.
Randell also refuted ideas that players had too much influence, and said you didn’t need degree in psychology to see that things weren’t going well.
“One of the things I really liked, irrespective of the decision, is that when it came to making the decision on the coaches, actually the chairman and one of the directors, Keven Mealamu, were directly involved in the review.
“They didn’t farm out that process to some consultants or a board of other people. They did it themselves. That’s what they were elected to do and they did it themselves.”
He said whether supporters agreed with the decision or not, the board had made a strong call and that was a good sign of leadership from NZR.
They’ve got institutional knowledge that’s been missing from the New Zealand Rugby board for a long time, he said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
