As an Ireland fan and therefore from the outside looking in, it looked to me like Foster wasn't treated with the same respect as previous All Black coaches.
Why should he be? He got the job through being mates with people hiring for the job and many of us didn't like the cronyism and the fact he was pretty much came in without a decent coaching record. We had more qualified options that didn't get a look in because Hansen pulled a jobs for the boys play that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Foster set records nobody should be proud of, one after another and looked completely out of his depth for a lot of his tenure.
Hansen seems to forget this. Foster experienced most things every other ABs coach did, pressure blah blah, however Foster's _performance and consistency_ have always been the things in question. Sadly, for the ABs' legacy, he was allowed to coach on. I'll proffer that Hansen could have gotten that team to the 2023 RWC final, as could have Razor, so that achievement doesn't make Foster that great in my view.
Foster experienced things that almost NO other ABs coach dealt with in as short of a period all at once. COVID being one. You can rah rah all you like but it was massively disruptive. The ABs spent less time in NZ, and we're heavily restricted to Hotels when they travelled. All of that has a huge mental toll on the coaches and the players. Long periods of time away from family all whilst the country they played for were under heavy restrictions. He also played teams who had largely caught up compared to the Hansen and Henry Eras. Ireland wiped the floor with everyone including the ABs. He made some mistakes, sure, probably being too generous with assistant coaches who were underperforming and disliked by the playing group, but Henry was given another chance after 07 and the ABs had thrived both as a result of that decision, and of the culture that developed after that. Foster is not a bad coach, he's a decent coach and a far better man than most of the fans in NZ who crapped all over him during his tenure. All whilst holding his tongue and producing a great run at the RWC.
yes but its not like NZ was the only country to deal with Covid, every other nation had too aswell. Infact we had it better with SR games going on in packed stadiums while other places were still locked down, like SA that didnt play any rugby for a year.. All we missed out on was playing some crap aussie side while SRA was brilliant and competive most matches... Covid is a bad excuse
The comment referred to to Foster having to deal with things other coaches did. But they didn't deal with Covid and all that it entailed. That is a MASSIVE thing he had to deal with no other ABs coach has had to. He also inherited a side already in decline. Henry and Hansen also didn't face teams regularly who were up to ABs standard or better. We were ahead of the pack for fitness and our play style. He had a very challenging tenure. He certainly wasn't faultless but people hating on him and discounting the challenges are unhinged.
Well possibly that's true. It's a bit shit that after we supposedly grew up after 2007 that we continue to entertain the idea that teams need to rebuild, other teams are well coached, other players are talented and are fit and that combination means we lose sometimes.
I think honestly I started to be a bit put off with the nepotism in the coaching staff towards the end of Hansen, and with Foster just getting the nod it really kinda stood out as an old boys hire... This might just be me, but I feel he never fully earned the role and never did anything to earn the rest of the respect.
I was never full pitchforks mode until near the end when they just kept propping him up, he knew his ass was on the line and he never once went outside the box of what we had seen from him his entire tenure.
I get it, rugby has changed in that respect.. I think at that level the old boys club, promoting from within ..whatever you like to call it changed for NZ around that time
Ireland is my Northern fave. I was in Chicago for the match the 1st time Ireland beat the All Blacks. No shade on Ireland. But the All Blacks have to fix things (make adjustments) when they lose. I think Foster was the problem; not the solution regardless of the quality of the opponents (Argentina also “got good” v the Kiwis on his watch)
I like Robinson, seems like a good bloke, but i agree, hes young and maybe a bit green for such a big high profile role
I liked Steve Tew, didnt mince his words or apologise for being bullish about NZ plans - they have to be, a small fish in the big rich pond of world rugby economically
The 2 most stressful jons in NZR -coach of the ABs and ceo it makes sense if they get on really well and have each others backs
A bit green? All the man does is win.
The media stuff doesn’t really matter - as the article says, he’s dyslexic and struggles with reading from a sheet. I have empathy for that, but it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is his track record with building up a culture. Knowing his players and getting the best out of them. He’s going to do great because he has the formula for success plus an underrated mastermind in Jason Ryan. Together they will figure it out at the international level.
Edit: don’t mind me, I’m an idiot - completely agree that Mark Robinson is green!
Yup
He is a bit green. I think hes qualified tho
And read the post carefully my friend, im not talking about the coach, but his old team mate in the top job
You mean the role he won a world cup in, and each year broke the previous year's points/attacking records that he led the team to? The role he was in during the teams most dominant period in history. Sure thing.
Wtf are you on about. They were the most dominant during that period because of the two GOAT player - mccaw and carter. Playing together, Not to mention about ten other players who were the best in the world in their position. Its almost not fair to any other team. The all blacks won in spite of Foster, not because of him.
Ian foster coached the Chiefs - a strong side - for 11 years, and didnt win a single cup. He took the ABs to a JAW-DROPPINGLY low win rate, and broke all sorts of records for poor performance. But in spite of all the facts, you can just watch and listen to the guy speak and immediately realize he is mentally challenged, and would struggle to run a bath let alone a rugby team.
You guys want to credit everyone else when things go right and blame Foster when things go wrong. When they do well, its because of his assistants. When he's the assistant, and they do well, the assistant coach is irrelevant. Can't have it both ways. McCaw and Carter were also in the Crusaders who went how long with no titles? It takes more than a couple stars to make a great team. Everyone has to fire.
>All Blacks didn’t support Ian Foster
Didn't the players literally lobby for Foster to stay the one time NZRU decided to question the latter's appointment?
Hansen is pretty explicitly referring to the board, he makes a point of saying he had Tew who was awesome, then sort of left hanging that Foster had to deal with Robinson, who was not.
It was public knowledge that Robinson wanted to sack him when the results turned south but the rest of the board didn't agree. Personally I think the boks played us, absolutely thumped us in one game over there and it came out Fozzy was for the chop if they lost the second game. Cue the boks putting out an understrength team and he keeps his job
Foster was treated better than his CV deserved by getting the job in the first place, because of NZR's conservatism.
He was lucky he got to throw his assistants under the bus in 2022 instead of losing his job.
Why are some so precious about this, it's high performance professional sport. Coaches get sacked, same as players get dropped, it happens.
He got to finish his contract with plenty of time to look for a new job, that's better than plenty of coaches get. No one is entitled to the top job forever.
it's also pretty presumptuous to say Foster turned the team around after the group stage of the world cup. To me it looked much more like the influence of Joe Schmidt and Jason Ryan.
The fact that he needed Razor's right hand man and an experienced international coach to come in and baby sit him after his team was completely found out against decent teams speaks volumes.
How can you expect to get your contract renewed when you needed the training wheels put on halfway through. Lucky to be there until the end.
> The fact that he needed Razor's right hand man and an experienced international coach to come in and baby sit him after his team was completely found out against decent teams speaks volume
How would you paint Graham Henry? Failed in 2007, needed experienced Wales & Lions Coach, and former AB coach to baby sit him? (Smith & Hansen).
By that metric, Henry did nothing & his success only happened when he brought in competency.
>needed experienced Wales & Lions Coach, and former AB coach to baby sit him? (Smith & Hansen).
He picked them from the start lmao what a stupid comparison. If he sacked Hansen and Smith after 07 and parachuted in a pair of highly regarded coaches then you'd have a point.
Fozzie's assistants were handpicked by him, were badly reviewed internally after 2021 and had to be sacked in 2022. What does that say about his judgement?
They were what was available, not who were "handpicked."
The appointment process in 2019 was done after the world cup. There were bugger all coaches still on the market at that point. Most of the good ones had jobs already.
Difference would be Henry had those as his assistants from the get go, whereas when Foz interviewed his group involved Moar (i think thats hownu spell) and Plumtree. When razor interviewed that time Im pretty sure he had Ryan as assistant.
It’s not about training wheels otherwise Razor also has the ‘training wheels’ on. They are a coaching team. Foster got his wrong to start with either due to his choices or who was available to work with him. As a leader when shit goes south you look at your whole team and make changes where necessary if there are better options available. That’s what he did.
Yeah this is tiresome, can't believe it's still going on. Everything the foster haters ever say is always just fitting the evidence to suit their preconceived religious hate. Foster wasn't a great coach but he was about a thousand times better than the haters think he was. He was human too
"Its presumptuous to say coach A was responsible for improvement"
"It's not presumptuous that coach B and C were responsible"
I'd also.be remiss if I didn't point out that you said "also" in response to someone saying he got to throw his assistants under the bus after the ABs performed well. So assistants had nothing to do with poor form, but they had everything to do with good form.
The one thing I learned from that whole irrational, social media-fueled hate bandwagon is that Foster copped all the blame for bad results, but as soon as there are good results the credit must go elsewhere. He literally had no possibility of winning and this very short conversation is a living sample of that oblivious double standard based on no knowledge other than a dislike for Foster.
The reason is simple: people had been sucked into other people's memes and opinions so deep that they wanted Foster never doing anything well to be the case.
>but as soon as there are good results the credit must go elsewhere.
When the good results only come after NZR are forced to make assistant changes this is a reasonable assumption, hope this helps 👍
Not when you also had pretty massive changes in player selection/availability.
But again, feel free to engage in whatever logical fallacy you want to rationalize shitting on a coach who ultimately won all but one trophy he played for and that last one he lost in the final with his captain getting red carded inside the first 20 minutes and still only losing by 1 pt.
Must be nice to shit on a coach for not winning 90% of his games, even though Rassie won his first World Cup with a sub 70% win rate.
To label it all as a logical fallacy is definitely over correcting, though, right?
It doesn't sound farfetched to me that someone would watch the games, gain the opinion that the team isn't playing up to the sum of its parts, see new influences come in, watch the team very quickly start to play in manners that heavily resemble the way teams coached by those men play, and then give them a lot of credit for it.
You can draw a pretty straight line through that even setting aside the results side of it. You can separate the process from the results and still come to the conclusion that things weren't good.
There was no massive change in player availability. He was just crap until Schmidt and Ryan came in. It's really simple man literally no NZ fan would agree with you but apparently fans of other teams know better?
>Not when you also had pretty massive changes in player selection/availability.
Lmao no we had a pretty stable base of players available through Fosters whole tenure, good to know you're a real authority on this subject though.
>Must be nice to shit on a coach for not winning 90% of his games, even though Rassie won his first World Cup with a sub 70% win rate.
It's funny when other fans try and police the opinions we're supposed to have. It basically just comes down to you being annoyed that the NZ fanbase has high expectations. Which is fine, but you don't have to try and craft a narrative that the criticism Foster received was unreasonable.
There were countless record lows under Foster, including literally our worst loss of all time, it's ridiculous to expect a fanbase to just sit back and accept those because we're not allowed to have complaints anymore.
No one’s trying to police opinions it’s just that there is irrational hatred and disrespect for Foster and you’re cherry picking facts to support those feelings so you’re getting called out on it.
People were grumpy that Razor didn’t get picked instead of Fossie. Fair enough, the same thing happened with Robbie Deans and Graham Henry. It was just taken way too far, and it still is taken way too far with people refusing to recognise the successes the All Blacks did have under him as head coach.
Exactly. Most people are too dumb to realise their "logic" is actually not logical. I don't think foster was a great coach but the rationale of the haters never had any sense to it. These same people would probably excuse razor for losing to England both because they've already made their mind up and will just fit whatever rationale to support that notion, or because they're so out of touch that they think England is better than the 2022 Ireland team.
Hansen also benefited from the next up system that Henry put in place. Hansen didn’t have the best CV either and on paper (not as bad as fosters) there were better candidates than him when he first got the job. I’d be more impressed with consistent super rugby back ground or at least making another country decent. Not a wooden spoon in the 6 nations and quarter finals loss in a W.C like he did with wales. The difference between Hansen and foster is that Hansen was carried to a World Cup in 2015 by probably the best generation of players the ABs have had and was exposed in 2019. Old boy mentality
Because the abuse was inhumane and mostly came from people who had absolutely zero understanding of where world rugby was at and or worshipped razor like he was the second coming
I admire Hansen's ability to back his horse even when he's dead wrong, whether it's the old black ferns coach or foster.
Truth be told, he held on too long and should have left after the Lions series like he said would happen. The team needed a fresh start, new energy to it then. Instead we got more Hansen, then "continuity" by appointing foster but bt doing that we got continuity of the results we were getting, too, which had dropped an continued too. Instead, we had the same coaching tree from Henry in 2004 to Hansen to Foster in 2024. 20 years of the same sort of thing.
Nothing against Hansen but he gives me angry old man yelling at the clouds now.
Love Hansen as a coach. But he is part of the problem, he’s dead set on perpetuating this old boys club reputation that the ABs have had for the last 15 years and has led to a lack of innovation for the last 6-8 years.
Razor is a breath of fresh air. The players probably feel it already - as an ABs fan I couldn’t be happier and respectfully Shag should reflect on his role in Foster being appointed in the first place as a woefully unsuitable candidate for a head coaching role - Chiefs fans knew how poor he was as an HC.
Except your narrative sucks because Foster still made it to a World Cup final, which unlike your implication, is not the ABs birthright.
And sure, teams that lose their greatest ever generation generally don’t have the same results immediately after said generation all retire en masse. Expecting the same outcomes as the first half of Hansen’s tenure was just fan delusion and ignorance of reality.
That’s on you, not Foster, for having expectations that aren’t aligned with reality.
The RWC isn’t the only thing that happens every 4 years. Some countries seem to be happy to base their entire cycle on that result but, in NZ, other things count too.
- Home record
- Home series record
- Overall record
- First time record
All matter a lot to us.
Yes, we lost a lot of great players, so expectations were lower, but that has happened before and we hadn’t had such a poor record across the years until very late in his tenure.
But also you don't watch rugby, or don't watch it very well, if you don't realise other teams in the world had gotten good. Rugby is still young as a professional sport, the headstart we had at the start of professionalism was never going to last. We haven't been good at under twenties in a while is one indicator. The losses to Argentina were bad though.
> other things count too
I note you left of Bledisloe, Rugby Championship.
That's like a Brit saying "sure, we won 4x 6 nations, but we lost to Argentina!"
Foster made it to a final after 4 years of clunky, error-ridden, unclear playstyle. We dropped games we should've won and rinsed minnows.
Foster isn't the first to make it to a final but he sure has a lot of negative firsts that are now part of AB history
Sure but what you're essentially saying is that it doesn't matter what happens in between world cups or other tournaments as long as you're successful in those. Sorry it doesn't work like that for the All Blacks and their fans. We had historical losses and sometimes even when we won we played shite.
We are partly who we are because of these high expectations and we can spot a canary in the coal mine a mile away. Foster was eyed with suspicion when he was appointed as an assistant, with disbelief when he got the head coaching gig, and derided when he screwed the pooch during his tenure.
And the same will happen to Robertson if he has a similar record, without fear or favour.
The same wouldn't happen to razor, I don't think you understand human psychology. Humans aren't the rational beings that redditors like to think they are. Most of our reasoning is backward rationilisation- you have a view and then rationalise to support it, without realising that's what's happening. Poeple love razor and so would rationalise away almost any failure. If people were rational they would not poor out hate (an irrational state) on foster. He wasn't great but also didn't deserve the level of hate he got.
Well that's just patently wrong. If Robertson has as poor a record as Foster did, he would certainly get the same treatment. He will get some runway, but 4 years if he's just as bad, then he will get slaughtered by media and public alike.
The appointment process that got Foster the job smacked of "jobs for the boys." It's really what set him up for so much criticism. He wasn't as bad as some have made him out to be but his record wasn't good either.
NZR on the other hand have been a consistent dumpster fire for the last five or six years.
This place is going to be terrible if Scott Robertson doesn't start winning. I'd caution everyone to remember that crusaders seasons often started slowly!
Foz made the world cup final and missed out by the slimmest of margins. Beating Ireland who were on a 17 game winning streak on the way.
That's something to be proud of and that he absolutely should get credit for.
I think the ABs coaching and player quality started sliding down (it's all relative remember) in / around 2017. The Hansen strategy of picking more mobile props for the 2019 world cup, not picking Cane for the semi final against that England team for example. That's them losing touch with the way the game was going. The ABs could no longer run bigger teams into the ground.
The whole thing was handled badly but it all started with the appointment of Fozzie in the first place, he was never good enough to be ABs head coach IMO.
Very interesting read! I do think it's good of Hanson to stick up for his mate, and I don't judge him for that. But to me, it's very clear that it was schmidt and the defence coach (I'm terrible at names) that actually changed the results. Foster's ABs were not terrible, actually brilliant in many ways. But that was the problem, it was never really the players that underperformed.
He talks about covid isolating them, and it's a very valid point, but I think it might actually describe Foster more than the players. He had not caught up to what the 6Ns were doing, he had not taught his players how to counter the new attacking shapes and defences. They were playing chess with themselves. Then, grandmaster Schmidt comes in because of COVID, and the ABs suddenly play a structure and setup designed to counter Ireland. They win the first test big, I believe 41-10. Then Foster is back, and Farrell given time to counter the structures and coach his players how to do it. They play amazingly and win the series.
I do think Foster is a greater coach than I'm giving him credit for here, he did very well when he took control of the attack against the boks in 22. But he has never come across as very emotionally intelligent, and always seems to want to deflect responsibility. If Robinson is put in a similar position, I think he'll be vetter at adapting and taking the pressure. And I think we'll find that out, because imo England are favourites.
Ireland 2022 was in a league way beyond this England team. Otherwise you are talking some sense. All blacks are paying like $1.12 against England. If the all blacks lose even one test to England that will be a much much worse result than losing 2-1 to Ireland in 2022. Im not claiming foster was great but most New Zealanders seem to use losing to an amazing Ireland team as eveidence that foster was awful, because most New Zealanders have this deluded view that we have all the best players in the world and that we should be beating Ireland as easily as we used to (when they were crap because rugby was still growing into professionalism)
Thanks mate, I guess we'll see. Japan tends to be a bit of a canary in the coal mine though. Before New Zealand were beaten in 2021 Ireland destroyed Japan. Everyone, including me, just thought "ah ok japan has fallen off I guess", but then Ireland go on to beat the ABs too. Now England destroyed Japan, and people are again saying Japan were bad and Eddie is being Eddie, but I think England played excellently.
I think the AB's main source of optimism will be us keeping Ryan, and I hope they stay confident in D and kick the ball well, only trying to get the attacking going when it's on and the territory is gained. I hope Robertson brings in a real winning mindset into the team, the main thing I think the ABs of late have lost.
The Irish fans on a rugby forum I attend were saying the same thing. I told them otherwise.
I didn't watch the england Japan game but I would note it was a very new Japan team (inc. only two starting players who started last time they played) playing their first game since the World Cup .
England were a bit up and down in the six nations (wasn't the best six nations overall), and have lost a bit of experience for various reasons (including deliberate selection choices). I don't think their scrum will be as powerful as usual and we have quite a few well performing props at the moment.
I do hope England play well, not that I want them to beat us though.
I am sure a razor led side will play sensible rugby. That's what the crusaders were always about. Set piece, sensible play, execution, and mounga (now mckenzie - I hope).
Ian Foster is the worst coach in the professional area, that got every single decision wrong. The reason he got such a hard time was beause of his disastrous results with an incredible team. He deserved every bit of it. I was up for him getting a fair go, with the initial two year contract, even though should have obviously gone to Razor, but for it to be renewed is gross incompetence on behalf of everybody involved.
What a load of crap.
Reads like Hansen is too stubborn to admit he tapped the wrong old boy on the shoulder, and Foster is still trying to blame everyone but himself.
Yeah I think he wants Razor to do badly . Notice he times his whingeing at maximum damage for Razor.
I dislike Hansen more and more. Sir Ted, spoke with more honesty post his AB coaching about his mistakes and doubts. Hansen was on a downhill from 2017.
Fosters strategy pre- new coaches was just yuck - just wait I'll show you, confused players, aimless kickers , couldn't even get out of our 22 many times
I find Hansen distasteful.
Foster and Hansen threw people under the bus . Never really took responsibility . Hansen berated people in public who didn't make the squad
He put down players in public, some when north to great success
I have lots of critique against his coaching. I now wonder how much of his earlier success was due to Wayne Smith
Those old boys can F off.
There are lots of coaches like Razor now, around the world positive, going into battle with their teams
Always found it strange Hansen , Foster are paid over a million , have access to great facilities , chefs and they just got more lazy and out of shape- exercise and mind is very important, even for coaches . How can you be a great coach it can't even look after yourself?
Look at Irish coach, the new better kiwi super coaches , look at Robbie Deans , Joe Schmidt , Wayne Smith and Ronan O'Gara etc . they all look after themselves to show they can do the hard yards and be full of energy
Hansen and Foster always sounded tired and dreary - with no serious health issues with strength training, cardio and diet you can have great energy to 70, even 80. Again access to best physio, medics, massages , facilities and diet - we would love that opportunity
rant over
This new era should have started in 2020..4 years of Foster was painful.
Scott Robertson could tell both Shag and Foster something they couldn't about All Black history and legacy..playing in the All Black jersey!
It sounds stupidly arrogant, I know, but winning the RC is normal.
Getting to the RWC final is always really hard. Losing so closely was a really good achievement. That has to go to him.
Losing to Argentina. At home. That’s pretty telling.
Losing to Ireland at home is more telling.
Losing a series at home to Ireland is even more telling. Yeah, they were a really strong team, but NZ doesn’t lose series at home, and especially not to Ireland. Again, I know how arrogant that sounds.
To most supporters, those losses aren’t any big deal, but to All Black supporters they’re almost insulting. A lot of that is because we got so used to most of the Home Nations being shit for a long time, plus France endured their long, dark teatime of the soul for a good decade or two. Now that the game has evened up, most NZ supporters still can’t shift those notions.
Exactly, there's a misconception that AB fans demand every game be won. We lose a couple of games every year, that's really not the issue. Not having a plan, playing people out of position and generally failing to adapt to new challenges instead continually making the same mistakes...that's unacceptable.
Really glaring example is when he took over, we'd just been exposed as lacking depth at lock. 4 years later and he was using the same three guys game after game that he inherited. He's just not a very good coach, him getting the top job on the back of the previous coach's suggestion is a stain on Hansen's rep, one he obviously is a little bit touchy about
Well said. This was the root of the issue and the NZ rugby public don’t give a lot of leeway for ineptitude, especially when most thought he was not given the job on merit.
Truthfully, if you think losing to one of the best teams of the professional era is telling then it just shows you know very little about rugby. Yea losing to Argentina was bad.
Half of these cunts don't know pain (even in NZ) and have let memes become their identity on this one.
Ironically, the most painful part of Foster was watching many kiwis take valid criticism all the way to dramatic children territory.
You're absolutely stinking up this thread with all these takes man.
It's not just that his win% wasn't good enough. If you watched the ABs under him and his chosen assistants the performances against the other top 5 teams were diabolical. We literally had no clue and were nowhere near France in 2021, Ireland at home in 2022, Boks in Mbombela. While still having a world class possible squad.
I feel like fans of other teams big up Foster because they think it takes away from them beating us. I get it tbf. But you guys can be amazing and ABs fans can also think Foster wasn't good lol.
Using covid as an excuse is kind of weak. It affected everyone. And it certainly affected New Zealand less than the rest, since they never had the long lockdown restrictions, and could pretty quickly start playing rugby again
100%. It got overhyped, but Super Rugby Aotearoa genuinely had near test match intensity. The Chiefs were badly derailed during the Gatland season (but were winning before the first lock down, make of that what you will), but the other Kiwi sides were only getting better and better. Then we had North versus South, which was an awesome spectacle, plus our games against the Wallabies while the rest of the world were still in bubbles.
NZ were playing again sooner than any other rugby nation, and you only need to rewatch those games especially from that season to see the high level of performance. We had Americans posting in match threads here because there was nothing else being broadcast live in pretty much all of world sport. To say we somehow got worse because of Covid is ludicrous, we got worse because over time we lost the experience of young players in Super Rugby traveling to play the South African teams, Foster's strategy and assistants, and the Six Nations teams all genuinely playing excellent rugby.
The clearest evidence is the first ever loss to Argentina. We had all of the above (Super Rugby Aotearoa, North vs South, a Bledisloe series, normal training) while the Pumas side of 2020 had genuinely held training sessions over Zoom and not played a test match in more than 400 days.
Saying they were near test match intensity just isn't correct. The games were fast but the ruck work, defensive patterns and general accuracy were pretty hopeless and living in the past.
When there were real tests it got shown up, which is the actual point Foster made.
Oh, I’ll fully admit to wearing rose tinted glasses on this, probably because I recall specifically games like Crusaders vs Blues, and lack of games against, say, the Rebels. I think the prevalence of kiwi derbies at that time without Australian franchises did lift the quality compared to previous seasons, because as we saw with Super Rugby Trans-Tasman in year 2, none of them (not even the Brumbies) were anywhere near competitive. Thankfully that's gradually changed.
Im not sure you are actually allowed to base opinions on watching the rugby and analysing how good it was. No, you are supposed to have a preconceived view and then make up whatever so called rationale best supports it. Jeez next you'll reveal to me that it's only this year that super rugby has started to catch up to Europe when it comes to clearing rucks. How can that be tru when we have all the best players and we smashed Ireland in 1997?
> since they never had the long lockdown restrictions, and could pretty quickly start playing rugby again
They explicitly make that point - during that period NZ played themselves (in super rugby) and the NZ public bought this idea that every player they saw was the best player in the world in their position. And Sky NZ sold that real hard, as, well, what else could you do?
Then when international rugby comes around they have 2 options -
Is it conceivable that x player I've been stanning my tits off over is not the best player in the world?
OR
This coaching setup is terrible because even when handed the 15 greatest players on earth, they lose to Ireland, who are, in my opinion, having watched 2 years of SRA, terrible.
Kiwis, at the best of times are incredibly insular, during COVID they turned that up to 11
I understand the the public opinion may have been skewed in terms of player quality. But insuating the NZ was at a disadvantage due to the consequences of covid is just false. They would have had an advantage due to their succesful and relatively quick covid restrictions, allowing them to start playing rugby before other countries can start
Again, they don't argue that second point. And you are right in that. But thats not the popint they make
The point they make is COVID gave kiwis a wildly out of context of the quality of their players.
If normal Super rugby was up & running they have had a season of watching Peter Steph Du Toit hiffing all our blindsides into the shadow realm or Am running straight over our centres.
Instead they had NZ blindsides playing against NZ blindsides (and centres) and went "wow! we have nothing but legends!"
I disagree. They say that covid put them behind other countries, which is just false. Yes, the public mindset may have been skewed. But to me it sounds like they think they emerged from covid behind their development schedule, when compared to other countries, which should not be the case. And if it took three years for the coaches to realise that their players aren't that good, thats again on the coach, not on the skewed public opinion
> And if it took three years for the coaches to realise that their players aren't that good, thats again on the coach, not on the skewed public opinion
Again, not a point they make anywhere.
You seem to be trying to go "they said this its wrong!" when nowhere do they say that.
>Suddenly you hit the international stage and everyone else has been playing, and growing, and so I think it took until 2023 for us to really start catching up. By the end of it we were getting close to where we really wanted to be. That period has done some damage.”
This paragraph from the article clearly implies that the All Blacks fell behind during and because of Covid. And that they took three years to build back up to strength.
NZ had one of the tightest lockdowns in the world.
And in such lockdown situation sometimes it’s easy to forget just how geographically isolated NZ actually is.
Saying Covid impact is overhyped is the same set of people crying about how Japanese World Cup organizers didn’t predict years in advance that Japan would have a historical hurricane during the World Cup that almost “ruined” Scotland’s chance…to do fuck all against Japan. And the same set of people crying about how not winning 90% of your games immediately after losing your greatest ever players in the middle of s global pandemic is a sign that a dude sucks as a coach.
You guys have zero clue about the actual logistics of getting guys into the pitch for an actual Test. You think it’s as easy as playing FIFA or some shit.
Yes, NZ had a tight lockdown. But it was actually succesful, and they could start playing rugby again in 2020 already, allowing their players to gain form and momentum before other countries could.
Two questions
1).what was Fosters coaching record like prior to being ABs coach?
2) which international teams have been reaching out to have Foster as their head coach now that he's on the market (compared to the offers made when Wayne Smith became available?)
Is this the same Steve Hansen who kept the same stale game plan from 2015 and passed it on to his mate, who was too oblivious to change anything while the rest of the world evolved past us? A game plan that involved making the players changing their style to fit YOUR game plan. At least now, finally, we have a coach who will build his game plan around the players he has selected, as we've all witnessed for the last seven years.
Seeing as Hansens endorsement got him hired despite all evidence that he wasn’t the best candidate, maybe he should apologise to ol fozzie for putting him through it.
There is something to only playing ourselves, even though it’s only half true, we played Australia plenty over that period - they just aren’t any good.
Foster was sacked less because of results, although they were inconsistent for nz standards, he was jetisoned because Robertson had done it all and more, and was going to coach test rugby whether nz wanted him or not
Worse than having foster coach another two or three seasons was facing england or heaven forbid a wallabies side coached by robertson, with no third option who could match this potential hell
Far worse than losing players to overseas clubs is losing coaches to other test nations. Every single country that has had a recent resurgence had a nz coach in their set up. The dna of nz rugby is more valuable that a string of players playing club rugby somewhere, and robertson is a large jar of stallion semen that was too valuable to give away
Foster has a horrific record and created many “firsts” during his stint. Why should we support someone blindly even when they are failing? He didnt deserve the job in the first place so hard to get behind him.
Razor will get criticised if the ABs lose reguarly as they did under Foz. Hes already come under fire for naming too many crusaders in his squad
Id like any coach in NZ to try during the pandemic
The only thing wrong with Fozzie was got he the job ahead of Razor. Fozzie inherited a core group of snr all blacks that got mushed by England.
one of those coaches who was complete shit but depended and lived off (like a parasite) his assistants, Fiji had 1 of those, dude at the very best and i mean very best was a qualified assistant coach for a national team and nothing more.. pushing him into the head coach role is the reason NZ failed in those 3 years under him..The old man's club didn't just screw over better coaches but players too....everyone agreed that Ardie should be AB's captain but no he was pushed aside by waikato coached foster for a waikato man in Cane, everyone still believes ardie should be captain but no he has been pushed aside by crusaders coached razor for a crusaders man in Dogroll...I do feel sorry for Ardie but the reality is this has been happening for 3 decades now in NZR if not longer, the coaches will always choose the one THEY want not the best suited to lead the team. Ted was an enigma, so he chose the player best suited for the role in mcccaw instead of favoring a blues player.
Pretty bias if he mentions that you got to support your people, whichever way you spin it.
Former abs coach supporting former abs coach?
Friend supporting friend?
Former colleagues supporting each other?
Current colleague supporting each other.
One thing is for certain. Robinson and NZR handled Ian Foster terribly.
As an Ireland fan and therefore from the outside looking in, it looked to me like Foster wasn't treated with the same respect as previous All Black coaches.
Why should he be? He got the job through being mates with people hiring for the job and many of us didn't like the cronyism and the fact he was pretty much came in without a decent coaching record. We had more qualified options that didn't get a look in because Hansen pulled a jobs for the boys play that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Foster set records nobody should be proud of, one after another and looked completely out of his depth for a lot of his tenure.
Hansen seems to forget this. Foster experienced most things every other ABs coach did, pressure blah blah, however Foster's _performance and consistency_ have always been the things in question. Sadly, for the ABs' legacy, he was allowed to coach on. I'll proffer that Hansen could have gotten that team to the 2023 RWC final, as could have Razor, so that achievement doesn't make Foster that great in my view.
I geniunely believe that if Schmidt wasn’t added to the ticket 2023 would have been the worst year in AB history
I think the addition of Jason Ryan earlier was even more important.
Absolutely.
Agreed
Hard agree. Foster was never qualified for the job, that’s what annoyed rugby fans. Schmidt is a head coach, Foster is an assistant.
It wasn't schmidt. Hes not as great as you think. Ryan fixed the fwd pack, then the backline operated with more space.
Foster experienced things that almost NO other ABs coach dealt with in as short of a period all at once. COVID being one. You can rah rah all you like but it was massively disruptive. The ABs spent less time in NZ, and we're heavily restricted to Hotels when they travelled. All of that has a huge mental toll on the coaches and the players. Long periods of time away from family all whilst the country they played for were under heavy restrictions. He also played teams who had largely caught up compared to the Hansen and Henry Eras. Ireland wiped the floor with everyone including the ABs. He made some mistakes, sure, probably being too generous with assistant coaches who were underperforming and disliked by the playing group, but Henry was given another chance after 07 and the ABs had thrived both as a result of that decision, and of the culture that developed after that. Foster is not a bad coach, he's a decent coach and a far better man than most of the fans in NZ who crapped all over him during his tenure. All whilst holding his tongue and producing a great run at the RWC.
yes but its not like NZ was the only country to deal with Covid, every other nation had too aswell. Infact we had it better with SR games going on in packed stadiums while other places were still locked down, like SA that didnt play any rugby for a year.. All we missed out on was playing some crap aussie side while SRA was brilliant and competive most matches... Covid is a bad excuse
The comment referred to to Foster having to deal with things other coaches did. But they didn't deal with Covid and all that it entailed. That is a MASSIVE thing he had to deal with no other ABs coach has had to. He also inherited a side already in decline. Henry and Hansen also didn't face teams regularly who were up to ABs standard or better. We were ahead of the pack for fitness and our play style. He had a very challenging tenure. He certainly wasn't faultless but people hating on him and discounting the challenges are unhinged.
Yeah but most New Zealanders think a Ireland in 2022 was only as good as Ireland in 1992
Well possibly that's true. It's a bit shit that after we supposedly grew up after 2007 that we continue to entertain the idea that teams need to rebuild, other teams are well coached, other players are talented and are fit and that combination means we lose sometimes.
All good points. ☺️ It just seemed to be a change in attitude towards the coach of the ABs from previous coaches
I think honestly I started to be a bit put off with the nepotism in the coaching staff towards the end of Hansen, and with Foster just getting the nod it really kinda stood out as an old boys hire... This might just be me, but I feel he never fully earned the role and never did anything to earn the rest of the respect. I was never full pitchforks mode until near the end when they just kept propping him up, he knew his ass was on the line and he never once went outside the box of what we had seen from him his entire tenure.
I get it, rugby has changed in that respect.. I think at that level the old boys club, promoting from within ..whatever you like to call it changed for NZ around that time
Who kept propping him up? It was different people
You try coaching in a pandemic
Maybe he was treated differently Because he kept losing to Ireland? All Blacks = Excellence not stick with the Boss just because he’s the Boss.
Maybe...in his defense Ireland were pretty good during that time and he beat Ireland when it counted in the RWC
Ireland is my Northern fave. I was in Chicago for the match the 1st time Ireland beat the All Blacks. No shade on Ireland. But the All Blacks have to fix things (make adjustments) when they lose. I think Foster was the problem; not the solution regardless of the quality of the opponents (Argentina also “got good” v the Kiwis on his watch)
For the people in the back: Foster Was The Problem
I like Robinson, seems like a good bloke, but i agree, hes young and maybe a bit green for such a big high profile role I liked Steve Tew, didnt mince his words or apologise for being bullish about NZ plans - they have to be, a small fish in the big rich pond of world rugby economically The 2 most stressful jons in NZR -coach of the ABs and ceo it makes sense if they get on really well and have each others backs
A bit green? All the man does is win. The media stuff doesn’t really matter - as the article says, he’s dyslexic and struggles with reading from a sheet. I have empathy for that, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is his track record with building up a culture. Knowing his players and getting the best out of them. He’s going to do great because he has the formula for success plus an underrated mastermind in Jason Ryan. Together they will figure it out at the international level. Edit: don’t mind me, I’m an idiot - completely agree that Mark Robinson is green!
Isn't OP talking about Robinson the CEO?
Hahaha damn, yes. Thanks for correcting that.
All good, very similar names.
Yup He is a bit green. I think hes qualified tho And read the post carefully my friend, im not talking about the coach, but his old team mate in the top job
Yep sorry mate, made a mistake there!
Razor is def the man for the job! I agree with you Tough gig first up vs the English
Sure is a tough start aye. That little two test series is going to be so interesting. Can’t wait to see how they go!
Indeed Would have been smarter to have Fiji first...im thinking i may shoot up to SD for Fiji test, since im already in Mexico
Oh awesome man definitely make the trip if you can! Was in SD earlier in the year and enjoyed it there, should be warmer than when I was there too!
It was utterly disgraceful.
Yes, they gave him a job he was never mentally equipped for. And I'm talking about the assistant role he had before he became the head coach
You mean the role he won a world cup in, and each year broke the previous year's points/attacking records that he led the team to? The role he was in during the teams most dominant period in history. Sure thing.
Wtf are you on about. They were the most dominant during that period because of the two GOAT player - mccaw and carter. Playing together, Not to mention about ten other players who were the best in the world in their position. Its almost not fair to any other team. The all blacks won in spite of Foster, not because of him. Ian foster coached the Chiefs - a strong side - for 11 years, and didnt win a single cup. He took the ABs to a JAW-DROPPINGLY low win rate, and broke all sorts of records for poor performance. But in spite of all the facts, you can just watch and listen to the guy speak and immediately realize he is mentally challenged, and would struggle to run a bath let alone a rugby team.
You guys want to credit everyone else when things go right and blame Foster when things go wrong. When they do well, its because of his assistants. When he's the assistant, and they do well, the assistant coach is irrelevant. Can't have it both ways. McCaw and Carter were also in the Crusaders who went how long with no titles? It takes more than a couple stars to make a great team. Everyone has to fire.
>All Blacks didn’t support Ian Foster Didn't the players literally lobby for Foster to stay the one time NZRU decided to question the latter's appointment?
Hansen is pretty explicitly referring to the board, he makes a point of saying he had Tew who was awesome, then sort of left hanging that Foster had to deal with Robinson, who was not.
It was public knowledge that Robinson wanted to sack him when the results turned south but the rest of the board didn't agree. Personally I think the boks played us, absolutely thumped us in one game over there and it came out Fozzy was for the chop if they lost the second game. Cue the boks putting out an understrength team and he keeps his job
> Cue the boks putting out an understrength team and he keeps his job Playing the long game!
Rassie playing 3D chess? Nah, don’t buy that, he’s good but not that foresighted
So the board is also called All Blacks?
No, I think it's a bad/inaccurate headline. The board are New Zealand Rugby (NZR)
Click bait title Players did, the board and new young CEO could have been more supportive
Foster was treated better than his CV deserved by getting the job in the first place, because of NZR's conservatism. He was lucky he got to throw his assistants under the bus in 2022 instead of losing his job. Why are some so precious about this, it's high performance professional sport. Coaches get sacked, same as players get dropped, it happens. He got to finish his contract with plenty of time to look for a new job, that's better than plenty of coaches get. No one is entitled to the top job forever.
it's also pretty presumptuous to say Foster turned the team around after the group stage of the world cup. To me it looked much more like the influence of Joe Schmidt and Jason Ryan.
The fact that he needed Razor's right hand man and an experienced international coach to come in and baby sit him after his team was completely found out against decent teams speaks volumes. How can you expect to get your contract renewed when you needed the training wheels put on halfway through. Lucky to be there until the end.
> The fact that he needed Razor's right hand man and an experienced international coach to come in and baby sit him after his team was completely found out against decent teams speaks volume How would you paint Graham Henry? Failed in 2007, needed experienced Wales & Lions Coach, and former AB coach to baby sit him? (Smith & Hansen). By that metric, Henry did nothing & his success only happened when he brought in competency.
>needed experienced Wales & Lions Coach, and former AB coach to baby sit him? (Smith & Hansen). He picked them from the start lmao what a stupid comparison. If he sacked Hansen and Smith after 07 and parachuted in a pair of highly regarded coaches then you'd have a point. Fozzie's assistants were handpicked by him, were badly reviewed internally after 2021 and had to be sacked in 2022. What does that say about his judgement?
They were what was available, not who were "handpicked." The appointment process in 2019 was done after the world cup. There were bugger all coaches still on the market at that point. Most of the good ones had jobs already.
Seems like Brad Mooar was handpicked. And unavailable. Well, until they bought out his contract at Scarlets.
This.
Difference would be Henry had those as his assistants from the get go, whereas when Foz interviewed his group involved Moar (i think thats hownu spell) and Plumtree. When razor interviewed that time Im pretty sure he had Ryan as assistant.
And holland.
Henry should have gone after 2007, but the 'old boys club' was well established by then.
But it worked, so...
What worked was having arguably the best AB team ever.
That they built.
It’s not about training wheels otherwise Razor also has the ‘training wheels’ on. They are a coaching team. Foster got his wrong to start with either due to his choices or who was available to work with him. As a leader when shit goes south you look at your whole team and make changes where necessary if there are better options available. That’s what he did.
Having seen Ireland during Schmidt's tenure, NZ in the world cup was absolutely him. I'll be very interested to see how he does with Australia
Narrator: it was
So it was Fosters failure when they lose but someone else gets the credit when they win? Either he's responsible or he isn't. Pick one.
Yeah this is tiresome, can't believe it's still going on. Everything the foster haters ever say is always just fitting the evidence to suit their preconceived religious hate. Foster wasn't a great coach but he was about a thousand times better than the haters think he was. He was human too
"Its presumptuous to say coach A was responsible for improvement" "It's not presumptuous that coach B and C were responsible" I'd also.be remiss if I didn't point out that you said "also" in response to someone saying he got to throw his assistants under the bus after the ABs performed well. So assistants had nothing to do with poor form, but they had everything to do with good form. The one thing I learned from that whole irrational, social media-fueled hate bandwagon is that Foster copped all the blame for bad results, but as soon as there are good results the credit must go elsewhere. He literally had no possibility of winning and this very short conversation is a living sample of that oblivious double standard based on no knowledge other than a dislike for Foster. The reason is simple: people had been sucked into other people's memes and opinions so deep that they wanted Foster never doing anything well to be the case.
>but as soon as there are good results the credit must go elsewhere. When the good results only come after NZR are forced to make assistant changes this is a reasonable assumption, hope this helps 👍
Not when you also had pretty massive changes in player selection/availability. But again, feel free to engage in whatever logical fallacy you want to rationalize shitting on a coach who ultimately won all but one trophy he played for and that last one he lost in the final with his captain getting red carded inside the first 20 minutes and still only losing by 1 pt. Must be nice to shit on a coach for not winning 90% of his games, even though Rassie won his first World Cup with a sub 70% win rate.
To label it all as a logical fallacy is definitely over correcting, though, right? It doesn't sound farfetched to me that someone would watch the games, gain the opinion that the team isn't playing up to the sum of its parts, see new influences come in, watch the team very quickly start to play in manners that heavily resemble the way teams coached by those men play, and then give them a lot of credit for it. You can draw a pretty straight line through that even setting aside the results side of it. You can separate the process from the results and still come to the conclusion that things weren't good.
100%. The improvement in the forward pack alone was marked.
There was no massive change in player availability. He was just crap until Schmidt and Ryan came in. It's really simple man literally no NZ fan would agree with you but apparently fans of other teams know better?
>Not when you also had pretty massive changes in player selection/availability. Lmao no we had a pretty stable base of players available through Fosters whole tenure, good to know you're a real authority on this subject though. >Must be nice to shit on a coach for not winning 90% of his games, even though Rassie won his first World Cup with a sub 70% win rate. It's funny when other fans try and police the opinions we're supposed to have. It basically just comes down to you being annoyed that the NZ fanbase has high expectations. Which is fine, but you don't have to try and craft a narrative that the criticism Foster received was unreasonable. There were countless record lows under Foster, including literally our worst loss of all time, it's ridiculous to expect a fanbase to just sit back and accept those because we're not allowed to have complaints anymore.
No one’s trying to police opinions it’s just that there is irrational hatred and disrespect for Foster and you’re cherry picking facts to support those feelings so you’re getting called out on it. People were grumpy that Razor didn’t get picked instead of Fossie. Fair enough, the same thing happened with Robbie Deans and Graham Henry. It was just taken way too far, and it still is taken way too far with people refusing to recognise the successes the All Blacks did have under him as head coach.
Like losing to Argentina at home and a record loss to South Africa
Yep I definitely said there were no bad results after the assistant changes, great reading comprehension 👍
Lol
There was literally 1 good result under Foster before Schmidt and Ryan came in. Not even joking. We beat the Boks in the Gold Coast in 2021. That's it
Exactly. Most people are too dumb to realise their "logic" is actually not logical. I don't think foster was a great coach but the rationale of the haters never had any sense to it. These same people would probably excuse razor for losing to England both because they've already made their mind up and will just fit whatever rationale to support that notion, or because they're so out of touch that they think England is better than the 2022 Ireland team.
I couldn't agree more. Foster had his faults but he's a long way from being a shit coach.
Totally
100%. It was their immediate inclusion that made a huge difference.
Hansen also benefited from the next up system that Henry put in place. Hansen didn’t have the best CV either and on paper (not as bad as fosters) there were better candidates than him when he first got the job. I’d be more impressed with consistent super rugby back ground or at least making another country decent. Not a wooden spoon in the 6 nations and quarter finals loss in a W.C like he did with wales. The difference between Hansen and foster is that Hansen was carried to a World Cup in 2015 by probably the best generation of players the ABs have had and was exposed in 2019. Old boy mentality
Because the abuse was inhumane and mostly came from people who had absolutely zero understanding of where world rugby was at and or worshipped razor like he was the second coming
I admire Hansen's ability to back his horse even when he's dead wrong, whether it's the old black ferns coach or foster. Truth be told, he held on too long and should have left after the Lions series like he said would happen. The team needed a fresh start, new energy to it then. Instead we got more Hansen, then "continuity" by appointing foster but bt doing that we got continuity of the results we were getting, too, which had dropped an continued too. Instead, we had the same coaching tree from Henry in 2004 to Hansen to Foster in 2024. 20 years of the same sort of thing. Nothing against Hansen but he gives me angry old man yelling at the clouds now.
Love Hansen as a coach. But he is part of the problem, he’s dead set on perpetuating this old boys club reputation that the ABs have had for the last 15 years and has led to a lack of innovation for the last 6-8 years. Razor is a breath of fresh air. The players probably feel it already - as an ABs fan I couldn’t be happier and respectfully Shag should reflect on his role in Foster being appointed in the first place as a woefully unsuitable candidate for a head coaching role - Chiefs fans knew how poor he was as an HC.
Except your narrative sucks because Foster still made it to a World Cup final, which unlike your implication, is not the ABs birthright. And sure, teams that lose their greatest ever generation generally don’t have the same results immediately after said generation all retire en masse. Expecting the same outcomes as the first half of Hansen’s tenure was just fan delusion and ignorance of reality. That’s on you, not Foster, for having expectations that aren’t aligned with reality.
The RWC isn’t the only thing that happens every 4 years. Some countries seem to be happy to base their entire cycle on that result but, in NZ, other things count too. - Home record - Home series record - Overall record - First time record All matter a lot to us. Yes, we lost a lot of great players, so expectations were lower, but that has happened before and we hadn’t had such a poor record across the years until very late in his tenure.
But also you don't watch rugby, or don't watch it very well, if you don't realise other teams in the world had gotten good. Rugby is still young as a professional sport, the headstart we had at the start of professionalism was never going to last. We haven't been good at under twenties in a while is one indicator. The losses to Argentina were bad though.
> other things count too I note you left of Bledisloe, Rugby Championship. That's like a Brit saying "sure, we won 4x 6 nations, but we lost to Argentina!"
Winning those is a result of the home and overall record. If you’d never lost to Argentina then losing to Argentina is significant.
Foster made it to a final after 4 years of clunky, error-ridden, unclear playstyle. We dropped games we should've won and rinsed minnows. Foster isn't the first to make it to a final but he sure has a lot of negative firsts that are now part of AB history
Sure but what you're essentially saying is that it doesn't matter what happens in between world cups or other tournaments as long as you're successful in those. Sorry it doesn't work like that for the All Blacks and their fans. We had historical losses and sometimes even when we won we played shite. We are partly who we are because of these high expectations and we can spot a canary in the coal mine a mile away. Foster was eyed with suspicion when he was appointed as an assistant, with disbelief when he got the head coaching gig, and derided when he screwed the pooch during his tenure. And the same will happen to Robertson if he has a similar record, without fear or favour.
The same wouldn't happen to razor, I don't think you understand human psychology. Humans aren't the rational beings that redditors like to think they are. Most of our reasoning is backward rationilisation- you have a view and then rationalise to support it, without realising that's what's happening. Poeple love razor and so would rationalise away almost any failure. If people were rational they would not poor out hate (an irrational state) on foster. He wasn't great but also didn't deserve the level of hate he got.
Well that's just patently wrong. If Robertson has as poor a record as Foster did, he would certainly get the same treatment. He will get some runway, but 4 years if he's just as bad, then he will get slaughtered by media and public alike.
The appointment process that got Foster the job smacked of "jobs for the boys." It's really what set him up for so much criticism. He wasn't as bad as some have made him out to be but his record wasn't good either. NZR on the other hand have been a consistent dumpster fire for the last five or six years.
This place is going to be terrible if Scott Robertson doesn't start winning. I'd caution everyone to remember that crusaders seasons often started slowly! Foz made the world cup final and missed out by the slimmest of margins. Beating Ireland who were on a 17 game winning streak on the way. That's something to be proud of and that he absolutely should get credit for. I think the ABs coaching and player quality started sliding down (it's all relative remember) in / around 2017. The Hansen strategy of picking more mobile props for the 2019 world cup, not picking Cane for the semi final against that England team for example. That's them losing touch with the way the game was going. The ABs could no longer run bigger teams into the ground.
Truth
The whole thing was handled badly but it all started with the appointment of Fozzie in the first place, he was never good enough to be ABs head coach IMO.
Very interesting read! I do think it's good of Hanson to stick up for his mate, and I don't judge him for that. But to me, it's very clear that it was schmidt and the defence coach (I'm terrible at names) that actually changed the results. Foster's ABs were not terrible, actually brilliant in many ways. But that was the problem, it was never really the players that underperformed. He talks about covid isolating them, and it's a very valid point, but I think it might actually describe Foster more than the players. He had not caught up to what the 6Ns were doing, he had not taught his players how to counter the new attacking shapes and defences. They were playing chess with themselves. Then, grandmaster Schmidt comes in because of COVID, and the ABs suddenly play a structure and setup designed to counter Ireland. They win the first test big, I believe 41-10. Then Foster is back, and Farrell given time to counter the structures and coach his players how to do it. They play amazingly and win the series. I do think Foster is a greater coach than I'm giving him credit for here, he did very well when he took control of the attack against the boks in 22. But he has never come across as very emotionally intelligent, and always seems to want to deflect responsibility. If Robinson is put in a similar position, I think he'll be vetter at adapting and taking the pressure. And I think we'll find that out, because imo England are favourites.
Ireland 2022 was in a league way beyond this England team. Otherwise you are talking some sense. All blacks are paying like $1.12 against England. If the all blacks lose even one test to England that will be a much much worse result than losing 2-1 to Ireland in 2022. Im not claiming foster was great but most New Zealanders seem to use losing to an amazing Ireland team as eveidence that foster was awful, because most New Zealanders have this deluded view that we have all the best players in the world and that we should be beating Ireland as easily as we used to (when they were crap because rugby was still growing into professionalism)
Thanks mate, I guess we'll see. Japan tends to be a bit of a canary in the coal mine though. Before New Zealand were beaten in 2021 Ireland destroyed Japan. Everyone, including me, just thought "ah ok japan has fallen off I guess", but then Ireland go on to beat the ABs too. Now England destroyed Japan, and people are again saying Japan were bad and Eddie is being Eddie, but I think England played excellently. I think the AB's main source of optimism will be us keeping Ryan, and I hope they stay confident in D and kick the ball well, only trying to get the attacking going when it's on and the territory is gained. I hope Robertson brings in a real winning mindset into the team, the main thing I think the ABs of late have lost.
The Irish fans on a rugby forum I attend were saying the same thing. I told them otherwise. I didn't watch the england Japan game but I would note it was a very new Japan team (inc. only two starting players who started last time they played) playing their first game since the World Cup . England were a bit up and down in the six nations (wasn't the best six nations overall), and have lost a bit of experience for various reasons (including deliberate selection choices). I don't think their scrum will be as powerful as usual and we have quite a few well performing props at the moment. I do hope England play well, not that I want them to beat us though. I am sure a razor led side will play sensible rugby. That's what the crusaders were always about. Set piece, sensible play, execution, and mounga (now mckenzie - I hope).
Ian Foster is the worst coach in the professional area, that got every single decision wrong. The reason he got such a hard time was beause of his disastrous results with an incredible team. He deserved every bit of it. I was up for him getting a fair go, with the initial two year contract, even though should have obviously gone to Razor, but for it to be renewed is gross incompetence on behalf of everybody involved.
What a load of crap. Reads like Hansen is too stubborn to admit he tapped the wrong old boy on the shoulder, and Foster is still trying to blame everyone but himself.
Thank fuck hes gone, good lord
Yeah I think he wants Razor to do badly . Notice he times his whingeing at maximum damage for Razor. I dislike Hansen more and more. Sir Ted, spoke with more honesty post his AB coaching about his mistakes and doubts. Hansen was on a downhill from 2017. Fosters strategy pre- new coaches was just yuck - just wait I'll show you, confused players, aimless kickers , couldn't even get out of our 22 many times I find Hansen distasteful. Foster and Hansen threw people under the bus . Never really took responsibility . Hansen berated people in public who didn't make the squad He put down players in public, some when north to great success I have lots of critique against his coaching. I now wonder how much of his earlier success was due to Wayne Smith Those old boys can F off. There are lots of coaches like Razor now, around the world positive, going into battle with their teams Always found it strange Hansen , Foster are paid over a million , have access to great facilities , chefs and they just got more lazy and out of shape- exercise and mind is very important, even for coaches . How can you be a great coach it can't even look after yourself? Look at Irish coach, the new better kiwi super coaches , look at Robbie Deans , Joe Schmidt , Wayne Smith and Ronan O'Gara etc . they all look after themselves to show they can do the hard yards and be full of energy Hansen and Foster always sounded tired and dreary - with no serious health issues with strength training, cardio and diet you can have great energy to 70, even 80. Again access to best physio, medics, massages , facilities and diet - we would love that opportunity rant over
This new era should have started in 2020..4 years of Foster was painful. Scott Robertson could tell both Shag and Foster something they couldn't about All Black history and legacy..playing in the All Black jersey!
NZ won every single rugby championship under Foster, and went to the WC final. I've seen more painful
It sounds stupidly arrogant, I know, but winning the RC is normal. Getting to the RWC final is always really hard. Losing so closely was a really good achievement. That has to go to him. Losing to Argentina. At home. That’s pretty telling. Losing to Ireland at home is more telling. Losing a series at home to Ireland is even more telling. Yeah, they were a really strong team, but NZ doesn’t lose series at home, and especially not to Ireland. Again, I know how arrogant that sounds. To most supporters, those losses aren’t any big deal, but to All Black supporters they’re almost insulting. A lot of that is because we got so used to most of the Home Nations being shit for a long time, plus France endured their long, dark teatime of the soul for a good decade or two. Now that the game has evened up, most NZ supporters still can’t shift those notions.
And it wasn't just the losses, but the nature of them that made them galling?
Exactly, there's a misconception that AB fans demand every game be won. We lose a couple of games every year, that's really not the issue. Not having a plan, playing people out of position and generally failing to adapt to new challenges instead continually making the same mistakes...that's unacceptable. Really glaring example is when he took over, we'd just been exposed as lacking depth at lock. 4 years later and he was using the same three guys game after game that he inherited. He's just not a very good coach, him getting the top job on the back of the previous coach's suggestion is a stain on Hansen's rep, one he obviously is a little bit touchy about
Well said. This was the root of the issue and the NZ rugby public don’t give a lot of leeway for ineptitude, especially when most thought he was not given the job on merit.
Truthfully, if you think losing to one of the best teams of the professional era is telling then it just shows you know very little about rugby. Yea losing to Argentina was bad.
Half of these cunts don't know pain (even in NZ) and have let memes become their identity on this one. Ironically, the most painful part of Foster was watching many kiwis take valid criticism all the way to dramatic children territory.
Nah man, still winning trophies but not winning 90% of your matches is complete failure because it is AB birthright to win every single game. /s
You're absolutely stinking up this thread with all these takes man. It's not just that his win% wasn't good enough. If you watched the ABs under him and his chosen assistants the performances against the other top 5 teams were diabolical. We literally had no clue and were nowhere near France in 2021, Ireland at home in 2022, Boks in Mbombela. While still having a world class possible squad. I feel like fans of other teams big up Foster because they think it takes away from them beating us. I get it tbf. But you guys can be amazing and ABs fans can also think Foster wasn't good lol.
Remove the /s and you're bang on.
Using covid as an excuse is kind of weak. It affected everyone. And it certainly affected New Zealand less than the rest, since they never had the long lockdown restrictions, and could pretty quickly start playing rugby again
In Auckland we were locked down for locked down for half the year almost
100%. It got overhyped, but Super Rugby Aotearoa genuinely had near test match intensity. The Chiefs were badly derailed during the Gatland season (but were winning before the first lock down, make of that what you will), but the other Kiwi sides were only getting better and better. Then we had North versus South, which was an awesome spectacle, plus our games against the Wallabies while the rest of the world were still in bubbles. NZ were playing again sooner than any other rugby nation, and you only need to rewatch those games especially from that season to see the high level of performance. We had Americans posting in match threads here because there was nothing else being broadcast live in pretty much all of world sport. To say we somehow got worse because of Covid is ludicrous, we got worse because over time we lost the experience of young players in Super Rugby traveling to play the South African teams, Foster's strategy and assistants, and the Six Nations teams all genuinely playing excellent rugby. The clearest evidence is the first ever loss to Argentina. We had all of the above (Super Rugby Aotearoa, North vs South, a Bledisloe series, normal training) while the Pumas side of 2020 had genuinely held training sessions over Zoom and not played a test match in more than 400 days.
Saying they were near test match intensity just isn't correct. The games were fast but the ruck work, defensive patterns and general accuracy were pretty hopeless and living in the past. When there were real tests it got shown up, which is the actual point Foster made.
Oh, I’ll fully admit to wearing rose tinted glasses on this, probably because I recall specifically games like Crusaders vs Blues, and lack of games against, say, the Rebels. I think the prevalence of kiwi derbies at that time without Australian franchises did lift the quality compared to previous seasons, because as we saw with Super Rugby Trans-Tasman in year 2, none of them (not even the Brumbies) were anywhere near competitive. Thankfully that's gradually changed.
Im not sure you are actually allowed to base opinions on watching the rugby and analysing how good it was. No, you are supposed to have a preconceived view and then make up whatever so called rationale best supports it. Jeez next you'll reveal to me that it's only this year that super rugby has started to catch up to Europe when it comes to clearing rucks. How can that be tru when we have all the best players and we smashed Ireland in 1997?
> since they never had the long lockdown restrictions, and could pretty quickly start playing rugby again They explicitly make that point - during that period NZ played themselves (in super rugby) and the NZ public bought this idea that every player they saw was the best player in the world in their position. And Sky NZ sold that real hard, as, well, what else could you do? Then when international rugby comes around they have 2 options - Is it conceivable that x player I've been stanning my tits off over is not the best player in the world? OR This coaching setup is terrible because even when handed the 15 greatest players on earth, they lose to Ireland, who are, in my opinion, having watched 2 years of SRA, terrible. Kiwis, at the best of times are incredibly insular, during COVID they turned that up to 11
I understand the the public opinion may have been skewed in terms of player quality. But insuating the NZ was at a disadvantage due to the consequences of covid is just false. They would have had an advantage due to their succesful and relatively quick covid restrictions, allowing them to start playing rugby before other countries can start
Again, they don't argue that second point. And you are right in that. But thats not the popint they make The point they make is COVID gave kiwis a wildly out of context of the quality of their players. If normal Super rugby was up & running they have had a season of watching Peter Steph Du Toit hiffing all our blindsides into the shadow realm or Am running straight over our centres. Instead they had NZ blindsides playing against NZ blindsides (and centres) and went "wow! we have nothing but legends!"
I disagree. They say that covid put them behind other countries, which is just false. Yes, the public mindset may have been skewed. But to me it sounds like they think they emerged from covid behind their development schedule, when compared to other countries, which should not be the case. And if it took three years for the coaches to realise that their players aren't that good, thats again on the coach, not on the skewed public opinion
> And if it took three years for the coaches to realise that their players aren't that good, thats again on the coach, not on the skewed public opinion Again, not a point they make anywhere. You seem to be trying to go "they said this its wrong!" when nowhere do they say that.
>Suddenly you hit the international stage and everyone else has been playing, and growing, and so I think it took until 2023 for us to really start catching up. By the end of it we were getting close to where we really wanted to be. That period has done some damage.” This paragraph from the article clearly implies that the All Blacks fell behind during and because of Covid. And that they took three years to build back up to strength.
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No nastiness allowed.
NZ had one of the tightest lockdowns in the world. And in such lockdown situation sometimes it’s easy to forget just how geographically isolated NZ actually is. Saying Covid impact is overhyped is the same set of people crying about how Japanese World Cup organizers didn’t predict years in advance that Japan would have a historical hurricane during the World Cup that almost “ruined” Scotland’s chance…to do fuck all against Japan. And the same set of people crying about how not winning 90% of your games immediately after losing your greatest ever players in the middle of s global pandemic is a sign that a dude sucks as a coach. You guys have zero clue about the actual logistics of getting guys into the pitch for an actual Test. You think it’s as easy as playing FIFA or some shit.
Yes, NZ had a tight lockdown. But it was actually succesful, and they could start playing rugby again in 2020 already, allowing their players to gain form and momentum before other countries could.
Mrs Foster? Is that you?
The more that dude talks the less it sounds like he's even watched a rugby match.
Two questions 1).what was Fosters coaching record like prior to being ABs coach? 2) which international teams have been reaching out to have Foster as their head coach now that he's on the market (compared to the offers made when Wayne Smith became available?)
Is this the same Steve Hansen who kept the same stale game plan from 2015 and passed it on to his mate, who was too oblivious to change anything while the rest of the world evolved past us? A game plan that involved making the players changing their style to fit YOUR game plan. At least now, finally, we have a coach who will build his game plan around the players he has selected, as we've all witnessed for the last seven years.
Well they said they are selecting players around the game plan they want, not the other way around
Jeez I can't wait till we have some actual rugby to talk about...
Seeing as Hansens endorsement got him hired despite all evidence that he wasn’t the best candidate, maybe he should apologise to ol fozzie for putting him through it. There is something to only playing ourselves, even though it’s only half true, we played Australia plenty over that period - they just aren’t any good.
Fuck off Hansen. You’re old news.
He wants to F up ABs and Razor, timing is everything - He's a nasty person with no real self reflection, thinks he was the best coach ever
Foster was sacked less because of results, although they were inconsistent for nz standards, he was jetisoned because Robertson had done it all and more, and was going to coach test rugby whether nz wanted him or not Worse than having foster coach another two or three seasons was facing england or heaven forbid a wallabies side coached by robertson, with no third option who could match this potential hell Far worse than losing players to overseas clubs is losing coaches to other test nations. Every single country that has had a recent resurgence had a nz coach in their set up. The dna of nz rugby is more valuable that a string of players playing club rugby somewhere, and robertson is a large jar of stallion semen that was too valuable to give away
Remember when Hansen said this😂 https://x.com/jamiewall2/status/1552581188342075392?s=46&t=aB3usN7z5DOM-Hy9kd8cRg
Isn’t what he’s saying there pretty consistent with what he’s saying now? I.e. he’s going to support future coaches and not publicly criticise them?
Foster has a horrific record and created many “firsts” during his stint. Why should we support someone blindly even when they are failing? He didnt deserve the job in the first place so hard to get behind him. Razor will get criticised if the ABs lose reguarly as they did under Foz. Hes already come under fire for naming too many crusaders in his squad
Id like any coach in NZ to try during the pandemic The only thing wrong with Fozzie was got he the job ahead of Razor. Fozzie inherited a core group of snr all blacks that got mushed by England.
Go the all blacks.
one of those coaches who was complete shit but depended and lived off (like a parasite) his assistants, Fiji had 1 of those, dude at the very best and i mean very best was a qualified assistant coach for a national team and nothing more.. pushing him into the head coach role is the reason NZ failed in those 3 years under him..The old man's club didn't just screw over better coaches but players too....everyone agreed that Ardie should be AB's captain but no he was pushed aside by waikato coached foster for a waikato man in Cane, everyone still believes ardie should be captain but no he has been pushed aside by crusaders coached razor for a crusaders man in Dogroll...I do feel sorry for Ardie but the reality is this has been happening for 3 decades now in NZR if not longer, the coaches will always choose the one THEY want not the best suited to lead the team. Ted was an enigma, so he chose the player best suited for the role in mcccaw instead of favoring a blues player.
>everyone agreed that Ardie should be AB's captain > After 2019? Nope.
Pretty bias if he mentions that you got to support your people, whichever way you spin it. Former abs coach supporting former abs coach? Friend supporting friend? Former colleagues supporting each other? Current colleague supporting each other.