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Australian Rugby / RA

stillmissit

Chilla Wilson (44)
If you haven't seen it this is Gatland talking about Scott Robertson and taking Wales to RWC, Both have some relevance to what we are talking about.

I wonder what Gatland will have in store for us in the RWC. Wales won't be easy.
 
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rodha

Dave Cowper (27)
Let's think about his Super Rugby success though. Robertson took a side that looked stale, wasn't performing to their potential and who hadn’t won a title for nearly ten years and starting winning immediately. Stale and not performing to their potential - sounds a lot like NZ, England and Australia to me, so understandably people are interested.

If the full CV isn't enough, there are plenty of comments from players and other coaches about how forward thinking and innovative Robertson is. It's that whole package that gets people excited.

The international experience argument is bullshit - Jake White only coached 1 season with one team (SA U20's in 2003), before being appointed Springbok coach in 2004 (subsequently 2007 RWC winner) without even provincial coaching experience. Rod MacQueen had only coached the Brumbies.

Razor coached 6 Super Rugby titles, won provincial titles, won U20's World Cup & won the Christchurch metro club title.
What does that have to do with what I said?

All thing else remaining constant, experience and success in a variety of systems besides just NZ/Christchurch is worth something. Not saying that makes him a better coach, but it is absolutely counts in his favour when recruiting a coach to a system outside of NZ/Christchurch.

There seems to be an argument here that Robertsons credentials for Wallabies coach are above question, which is nonsense. There is no perfect candidate, they all have flaws or gaps which is why they aren’t head coaches of test nations now.
Robertson has a proven ability for taking struggling sides and transforming them.

He inherited a dead last Sumner side & turned them into premier champions within 2 years, he transformed a previously 7th placed Crusaders outfit (2015, 2016), and a NZ-U20 side that hadn't won the World Championship in 5 years.

Crusaders without Scott Robertson - (2015/2016) 7th, 7th.

Crusaders with Scott Robertson - (2017/2018/2019/2020/2021/2022) 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st.

I'd argue that his successes in 2020, 2021 & 2022 mattered slightly more, because I think on paper the Blues were a slightly more talented team, man for man.

The fact Razor's remained so dominant without a sophomore slump, that's a strong indicator that he's constantly evolving & innovating.
 
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stillmissit

Chilla Wilson (44)
Let's think about his Super Rugby success though. Robertson took a side that looked stale, wasn't performing to their potential and who hadn’t won a title for nearly ten years and starting winning immediately. Stale and not performing to their potential - sounds a lot like NZ, England and Australia to me, so understandably people are interested.

If the full CV isn't enough, there are plenty of comments from players and other coaches about how forward thinking and innovative Robertson is. It's that whole package that gets people excited.

The international experience argument is bullshit - Jake White only coached 1 season with one team (SA U20's in 2003), before being appointed Springbok coach in 2004 (subsequently 2007 RWC winner) without even provincial coaching experience. Rod MacQueen had only coached the Brumbies.

Razor coached 6 Super Rugby titles, won provincial titles, won U20's World Cup & won the Christchurch metro club title.

Robertson has a proven ability for taking struggling sides and transforming them.

He inherited a dead last Sumner side & turned them into premier champions within 2 years, he transformed a previously 7th placed Crusaders outfit (2015, 2016), and a NZ-U20 side that hadn't won the World Championship in 5 years.

Crusaders without Scott Robertson - (2015/2016) 7th, 7th.

Crusaders with Scott Robertson - (2017/2018/2019/2020/2021/2022) 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st.

I'd argue that his successes in 2020, 2021 & 2022 mattered slightly more, because I think on paper the Blues were a slightly more talented team, man for man.

The fact Razor's remained so dominant without a sophomore slump, that's a strong indicator that he's constantly evolving & innovating.
Rodha, it's hard to convince some people that a coach can be successful simply by seeing the world differently from others who tend to copy those who are successful but it's too late mostly. McQueen was a great innovator and Robertson is one as well. We need an innovator, player motivator and manager not someone with a resume as long as your arm who can only do what others have done.
 

qwerty51

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Jason Ryan's almost immediate success with the ABs might impact Robertson's resume.

Ryan has been Robertson's assistant since Canterbury's NPC titles and all of the Crusaders' titles.

Robertson fantastic no doubt but might not be the solo genius people think he is, Ryan is surely responsible for almost all of the Crusaders forward DNA.
 

Slim 293

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Also, Jake White was a technical advisor for the Springboks under Mallet in the late 90’s, and worked as an assistant and head coach in the SA junior teams before his eventual appointment.

But yes… these are all examples from 20-30 years ago.
 

A mutterer

Desmond Connor (43)
Call me crazy, but theres a part of me that what's Eddie to coach us again, and implement the masterplan he has been brewing a la squidge and take us back to our rightful place as #1. We could feed off the tears of others for days!
 
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Wilson

David Codey (61)
Call me crazy, but theres a part of me that what's Eddie to coach us again, and implement the masterplan he has been brewing a la squidge and take us back to our rightful place as #1. We could feed off the tears of others for days!
I definitely don't want him as head coach again - there's been too much smoke about the working environment he puts together for players and assistant coaches that I can't see it ending any other way than very expensive tears for Australian rugby, and I don't think that's something we can afford.

If he was to come in as a technical advisor/assistant for the world cup like he did for the boks in 07 that's something entirely different. He's undoubtedly brilliant in a technical sense and strikes me as the type that would absolutely relish a bit of a revenge job helping to knock out England.
 

rodha

Dave Cowper (27)
I think Leon Macdonald & Joe Schmidt might just have the inside running ATM esp after Rangi was given the AB XV job.
Unfortunately I think this may eventuate, NZ Rugby aren't going to admit their mistake any time soon.

Ronan O'Gara wrote this great piece about Robertson right after Foster was appointed in 2019, he really highlights how much of a missed opportunity it was at the time & he's only been proven correct since...


Irrespective how I word this, it will be interpreted incorrectly by some.

Being a strong advocate of Scott Robertson to replace Steve Hansen as All Blacks coach does not mean Ian Foster is not the right fit in my eyes.

But — there’s always a but — I can’t help feeling that the New Zealand Rugby hierarchy has missed a trick here.

Timing is everything, they say, and the timing for ‘Razor’ to assume the most prestigious post of his career was absolutely perfect.

He is a brilliant coach, a brilliant people person, and when Sam Whitelock returns from his gap year in Japan, he would have had a brilliant chemistry with his captain moving towards the next World Cup.

When I heard Razor hadn’t got the job, I started wondering where did he fall short? Of course, he didn’t fall short at all.

The NZRU clearly were looking for something different. Continuity? Experience? But what have they given up?

Razor’s vision for the All Blacks is something the players and the country will miss going forward.

I’d love to have seen his presentation, because rest assured, it would have been innovative and progressive and something the interview board would not have seen before. Perhaps too much so.

Maybe ‘falling short’ amounted to being too ‘out there’ for decision-makers in the NZRU, and I am only surmising here.

Rugby and society are changing so fast nowadays, it’s hard to keep up if you are in your twenties, never mind forty-something coaches like Razor and I. But he gets it.

He connects brilliantly with players 20 years younger than him. I believe that should be a pre-requisite for getting a job like this.

He just makes the game so enjoyable. Being in an All Black camp with Razor would have been a fun place to be.

Of course, there’s no reason to assume it won’t be like that under Ian Foster.

Those underwhelmed by his appointment point to the ‘sameness’ of the new set-up, but that does not take into consideration the player turnover in that time.

Foster is 54, he was clearly not ‘the people’s choice’, but that perception is very easily changed when you are racking up the W’s.

I worked closely with Scott Robertson for two years, so I am biased. It is argued that one of his main shortcomings is a lack of international test experience.

That’s an impossible argument to win either way but consider two things here — No 1, that is a stick used to beat a player, not a coach who has dominated the game in the southern hemisphere for three years.

And secondly, two thirds of the NZ team are his own Crusaders, many of them he has developed into All Black leaders.

Razor’s ability to get the best out of the remainder of the group when they pull on the black jersey is beyond dispute when you’ve seen him work at close quarters.

Where does he excel? His abilities in the area of people interaction and connection are off the charts. He stokes players’ passion, their identity, and their focus.

I saw all those things first hand in Christchurch and I think he would even ramp it up had he been the new All Blacks coach.

I do wonder was Razor even over the heads of some of the decision-makers in this process? I don’t mean that in a pejorative way, but he thinks fresh and he thinks different.

Maybe that scared some folk.
 
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