Cura. I'm Susann Udquitzt and for Chelsea Daniels. And this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Scott Robertson is the most successful coach in Super rugby history, leading the Crusaders to seven back to back titles. He's also a firm favorite with the public. It is perhaps the most popular rugby coach we've ever had. But his transition from the Red and Blacks to leading
the All Blacks hasn't been smooth sailing. The national side has posted three losses from seven matches, their latest being against the spring Box at the weekend. So what are the issues facing his side? Is there an easy fix or is this a sign of longer term issues for rugby in this country. Well, today on the Front Page we are joined by Newstalk zb's sports news director Clay Wilson to help us unpack the low Clay, what do you make of the All Blacks result at the weekend?
Well, it's got to be concerning is probably a strong word, but at least there's got to be some level of worry about where the team is that right, A new coach, a kind of new era after the last year's World Cup, and they've now lost three of the last four games. I think the big concern that's come out of that is that these are games that the All Blacks could have won, got themselves in positions to win, and haven't
been able to finish those games off. So there's clearly a part of the big part of the All Blacks game that they need to fix. And this is a team that's been so dominant for so long in this sport. You know, we don't tolerate losses that well when it comes to this team. So yeah, there's certainly lots to come out of it. I'm sure lots that we'll get into about where the team is at and what can be done going forward.
As you say, the All Blacks have been so dominant in the past, is it fair to say they've lost a little bit of that aura about them now?
I think that is fair to say, But I think that's happened in the past before. I think sometimes there's this perception that the All Blacks have been the dominant team in rugby forever, going all the way back to when William Webbel has picked the ball up and ran with it, which to me is just not true. Like these things come in cycles. And while the All Blacks have been probably for a lot of people in their memory more often than not, the dominant team, that hasn't
always been the case. And maybe this is just one of those periods where now they're not the dominant team. South Africa are clearly a very good team. Ireland have been a good team for a while and times have kind of changed. But yeah, I think they have lost that aura. And there's an element too for me of society changing. You know, thirty forty fifty years ago, the world was different and the All Blacks was such a
huge part of who we were as New Zealanders. There's so much more to the world now, the digitization of how life is, social media, all these things, and also options for sports in this country. So I think all that contributes to perhaps this aura that the team once had not quite being what it was. But of course, when you lose games, if you're a team that's seen is invincible, then maybe you're not so quite so invincible anymore.
For your Blacks. And for the first time for your Blacks, those four.
Straight to the old four, now this is the third lass and seven matches for the All Blacks, the first under new coach Robertson. What's he had to say about these results?
From what I've heard, he's acknowledged that it isn't good enough. He believes that the team isn't far away and the results and the performances reflect that. Really, that opinion is that they've been in positions to win these games that they've lost and haven't won them. So and also South Africa, I think it's pretty clean out the best team in
the world. And if you're getting close against the best team of the world and not playing your best, maybe that's a sign that you know things aren't so bad. But the for the All Blacks is winning. We expect the All Blacks to win every game, and when they don't, there's clearly something not quite right. So I think he acknowledges that, and I think he's now coming to grips
with the reality of coaching this team right. He's been someone who's been floated as a coach for this team for so long, has had so much success at the level below, and now it's the reality of doing the job and that's starting to sink in a bit. So it'll be very interesting to see how he goes forward and how the team responds to this position they're in.
We're talking about being proud of all our efforts and how much care and what we did physically and stuff, but the Blue Juessey demands the best of us and then finishing what we've created. So small margins tist fully, some great things to see, but not the result.
As you say, Scott Robertson has had so much success with the Crusaders. How much of a different beast though? Is it coaching a national site?
Well, I think he's finding that out now, and that's not to say he won't go on and successful coach at this level and a successful coach of this team. But he had such a long period with the Crusaders and so much success, but no real international coaching experience. He coached the junior or Blacks, the New Zealand under twenty team, but nothing at senior international level, whereas his predecessor in Foster was an assistant coach for this All Black team for a long time, so it was embedded
in an international senior men's team environment. Some people might say it's not that big a step up, but it really it's different. And when you play a team like the spring Box at Allis Park or at Newlands like they did at the weekend, that's when you find out the difference between playing at Super rugby level and playing at an international level. So he is clearly a good coach. He wouldn't have run won seven Super Rugby titles in
a row without being a good coach. But it is a step up and there's different pressures that come with it. The game is different at the international level, so perhaps he's starting to maybe not find that out. I think he probably is something he expected, but now being able
to deal with it is a different thing. And like I said, it's going to be very interesting to see how he goes forward from here now that perhaps might have known this was one of the scenarios that it might not have all gone to plan right at the Star and now he's right in the middle of it.
As you mentioned, Ian Foster had this international experience that Scott Robertson didn't. But he had a rocky start to two losses and one draw in his first seven matches. He went on to face this immense pressure or backlash from the public. Do you think Inzidar is concerned by what's happening given the whole sarget that went on to replace Foster.
Yeah, well this is one of the very interesting parts of it, right. There was so much support for Robertson and Zider even had Scott Robertson lined up to replace Foster before they won that game in Johannesburg in twenty twenty two. Yeah, I think I think concerned at ends to a certain extent. These two games come up against Australia. They'll want to win both those games and that if they don't, I think then maybe we'll see Well we won't see it, but I would be surprised if there
isn't some real concern at New Zealand Rugby. There was so much public support for Scott Robertson, so much goodwill at New Zealand Rugby to get him into his job, and now it's not quite going to plan. But like you said, the same with n Foster. Not everyone starts out just just winning every game. I'm sure they'll be talking about it at New Zealand Rugby and probably at the stage trying to find ways to help him. But yeah, when you're a company which New Zealand Rugby is or
an organization. It's employed someone who came in with so much hype and now things aren't quite going to plan. There's got to be some level of concern when they sit around the boardroom table. I'm sure.
He missed. He missed the bus because he missed a transport to the bus and that was it, and he apologized to the group. Mostly it was just it was a misunderstanding. It was simple as that. So I can't say anymore. The Big Sea did a great job, you know, I keeping if he's a curfew broken and there's no care for you. It was just a bus.
Robertson's got a slightly different style to Foster. He didn't hold Damien McKenzie up to previous standards for missing the team's bus to the airport, and then assistant coach Lee On McDonald and Ham parted ways after just five tests.
They were friends who became rivals, then workmates and now ex colleagues. Leon McDonald is out as All Black's assistant coach after just five games following disagreements with Scott Robertson.
How bad of a look is this on top of these losses?
I feel like it's more perception than any kind of real, real impact within the team. It's hard to say these things like Leo McDonald leaving the coaching team is so big nowadays, how much impact does that head on the team losing these last two games since he's gone. Sure, these things are unsettling, but to me in terms of the impact of the team on the field, I don't think it plays a huge part. And then going on
to lose these games. Damien McKenzie, I guess it's just a different approach to how Scott Robinson wants to handle these things. But the players these days are they deal in high pressure environments constantly. That's what their job is. Things like this, while they might be unsettling for a few hours or a day or two, these players are very good at just being able to put that stuff in the background and focus on what they paid to do, which is be good rugby players.
There's become a bit of a pattern here. I've read some stats that the All Blacks haven't scored a try in the last quarter for the last four matches. Is the problem that they're sailing to finish.
If not the biggest problem, it's one of the biggest problems this team currently has, like you say, unable to score points in the last quarter of and that's not what we've come to know from the All Blacks as a team. You think about the two World Cups that they won and that group of players they had. Not only was it a great starting fifteen, but the All Blacks were renowned for having this bench that comes on and just takes away anything from other teams in the
last quarter of games. And now it's South Africa that has that advantage and the All Blacks are struggling in that department. And reality is rugby is an eighty minute game. You can be great for sixty five or seventy minutes, as the All Blacks were, especially in the fe Test in South Africa, but if you don't finish the game off, you're going to lose against other good teams. Because it's such small margins between these top teams, it is a
massive problem. What do they do about it. They tried to juggle around their lineup a bit for the weekends game in Cape Town. That didn't work. So maybe it's a mentality thing. The players are not quite attuned or have the confidence in the last part of these games to be able to go and do it, and that's not an easy fixer. I mean, I don't know what the answer is to that, other than continuing to adjust the lineup. Do they talk about it much? Do they
avoid talking about it? But it clearly is, like I say, if not the biggest problem, one of the biggest issues that the team needs to remedy before they're going to be competitive and be able to get back to winning games consistently against these top teams.
You spoke previously about how there's so much going on in the world now there are a lot of options for sports for kids that perhaps we didn't have in the day. Is that part of the issue that we don't have the depth of players coming through now? In part?
Maybe I think it would be true that perhaps the depth of player isn't quite there, But I still think New Zealand is essentially a rugby nation at its course still and the players that are coming through are still very very good players capable of making this team the best team in the world at rugby at a junior level has now been overtaken by the likes of football
and basketball. It's impossible to think that doesn't have an impact at the final end, right I still think the players are there to win these kind of games, to make the All Blecks the kind of dominant team that they have been for so long. To me something like that, the impacts of that are perhaps not going to be seen until a little bit later, if we ever see them. Right now, it's more an issue about what the team's doing preps, how they're being coached, maybe to a certain example.
Another interesting result at the weekend when Argentina beats Australia.
Sixty Argentina a record sixty seven to twenty seven thrashing, scoring fifty points in the second half alone. New Zealand and Australia for the time being battling it out to the championship Wooden Spoon. The last time that happened fifteen years ago. How times have.
Changed, Other teams in countries simply becoming better at rugby and therefore the margin is closing.
Yeah, And I think these are things that also come about in cycles. Teams aren't always on the same level at the same time. At the moment we're seeing South Africa are in a very good patch of their kind of rugby history, that the team is very good, that the running World champions they've bet the All Blacks four times in a row, and like where the All Blacks a struggling a little bit, the Australian side is struggling
a lot. Argentina has risen. But I think overall, the competitiveness of the World game it's much more even, it is closer. Other teams have they caught up probably, yeah, they have caught up, and the All Blacks have maybe just plateaued and a team like South Africa has continued to improve innovate a little bit more perhaps than the
All Blacks have. Yeah, that's I think that's the reality of how these cycles of a sport goes, is that sometimes team's going to be dominant, you know, the opposition are going to catch up and then do you do you then go to another level or does another team your mental in at the moments that Africa has taken that mental the All Blacks once had.
So we haven't become worse as a national side. We've just placed owed, is what you're saying.
I think, so, I think you know, I mean, look at the position the team's got themselves into in these games, these last two tests, especially in South Africa against the World Champions. You don't get yourself in those positions if you're not a good team. But the margins, like we spoke about, are so small that if you're not quite what you used to be, or you're not quite at the best in the game, you're going to lose in those last ten to fifteen minutes. And that's what's happening all right.
Just finally, are there any immediate changes that can be done to turn things around for this side? Or has Robertson stumbled into some longer term issues with rugby in this country and will that take some time to fix?
I think for him now it's maybe about experimenting a little bit, and that's difficult to say because the team's been losing and you want to win games. They now have two tests against Australia and Australia got almost seventy points put on them over the weekend. Like you mentioned by Argentina, if you can't win both those games then that's a real worry. But there has to be something done in terms of how they rejig the lineup. Do they go for youth. There's a lot of good, promising
young players coming through in the squad. This is the first year of a World Cup cycle. If you're going to give these players opportunities, now is the time to do it. But of course he's trying to juggle that with making sure that you don't lose any more games. Yeah, outside of that, what do you do? There might be something they can do to help build their confidence in terms of off the field these losses that have come
because of poor finishes to games. That's got to be in some part due to where the teams at mentally, where the confidence levels are at. But what do you do apart from move a few pieces around and try and reset and then go again. It's well timed that they're playing two tests against Australia because like I say, Australia aren't certainly not at their best at the moment, and the two games you should win, both in Australia
and here in New Zealand. Then maybe if they can get a couple of wins under their belt, it's that confidence that they're that little bit of comp and are lacking might come back, because then they go on an interview tour. But I've got five tests that are all going to be very challenging, and you know you've got if you have seven tests lists left in the year. You don't want to lose too many more when you've already lost three to start the season, do you. So?
Maybe it's just a confidence then getting a couple of wins against the Wallabies on the board, and then and then that that might set them, set them away, and prep Scott Robertson can finally sort of get to momentum as the new coach of this team.
Well, let's hope. So thanks for joining us, Clay. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at zet Herald dot co dot enz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells Dan Goodwin as a sounder engineer. I'm Susie Nordquist. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.