All Blacks 2025
-
-
@Chris-B on international experience, the point being that coaching a club team in a competition is a completely different kettle of fish to coaching a national side, particularly the ABs. International coaches struggling with sub-par club sides doesn't invalidate that.
-
@Mauss Ha - pointed that at you, because I thought I'd get a well considered response and I'm not disappointed!
But, the thing I really question is the assumption that not having coached internationally is a massive disadvantage.
Now if you've coached a top-6 international team, then you'd expect that you'd learn plenty at the margins in test matches.
But, if you've coached Japan or Italy or Fiji - I reckon that's got minimal additional value compared to coaching the Crusaders. And even those who've coached bigger teams struggle to translate that into meaningful statistics.
Which current international coaches have a higher winning percentage than Razor?
-
@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris-B on international experience, the point being that coaching a club team in a competition is a completely different kettle of fish to coaching a national side, particularly the ABs. International coaches struggling with sub-par club sides doesn't invalidate that.
Well - that's easy to state.
Show me some statistics and examples to prove it.
Who's currently doing better than Razor and why?
-
@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
It will not be Ryan he is a great mate of Razors and Jason is pretty easy going he wouldn’t step on Razors toes.
That speculation is way off the mark.Hey mate, any info regarding whether Holland will have a replacement or does Ellison becomes the midfield coach?
-
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2025:
@No-Quarter said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris-B on international experience, the point being that coaching a club team in a competition is a completely different kettle of fish to coaching a national side, particularly the ABs. International coaches struggling with sub-par club sides doesn't invalidate that.
Well - that's easy to state.
Show me some statistics and examples to prove it.
Who's currently doing better than Razor and why?
I am not exactly sure what you mean by that, Razor is the only AB coach. He's doing about as well as Fozzie, and a lot worse than Hansen, Henry, Mitchell, etc... he's currently right down the bottom of the list of AB coaches by win rate. He's also continued in Fozzie's vein of setting records he doesn't want, like a 43-10 drubbing to SA at home, arguably the worst AB performance of all time.
It's pretty obvious the impact an experienced coach like Schmidt had when he turned Fozzie's rabble into a team that should have won the WC. It's not an outrageous claim to make that Schmidt would have hit the ground running if he took over and we would have been better for it, rather than watching Razor try to navigate the steep learning curve between coaching a club side versus coaching the ABs.
-
@MacDazzler said in All Blacks 2025:
Mark Watson calling for Razor to be sacked and also all of his remaining assistants on radio today.
Mark Watson? Seriously?
-
@No-Quarter I'm really asking for proof that previous international coaching experience is a massive advantage. I'm not entirely sure it is - I think a talented provincial coach is preferable to a bog-standard international coach. And a few rebuttals...
Ryan came in with zero international experience and improved the forwards as much as Schmidt did the backs.
They collectively both got thumped by the Jaapies at Twickenham, which was pretty much as bad as losing in Wellington this year.
As I point out above - it is Razor 4 - Schmidt 0 - and you've got to wonder whcich of Razor's 6 losses, Joe would have made enough difference to win?
According to Wiki Joe joined the coaching panel on August 17 2022 and subsequently we shipped losses to:
Argentina 18-25
SA 35-7
France 27-13
SA 12-11Plus a draw with England.
15 wins from 20 = 75%
We've lost to the same group of teams and the percentage is not much better - and with arguably better players.
-
-
@restofit said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
It will not be Ryan he is a great mate of Razors and Jason is pretty easy going he wouldn’t step on Razors toes.
That speculation is way off the mark.Hey mate, any info regarding whether Holland will have a replacement or does Ellison becomes the midfield coach?
I haven’t heard anything as yet .
-
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2025:
They collectively both got thumped by the Jaapies at Twickenham, which was pretty much as bad as losing in Wellington this year.
Getting thumped in a throw away game amongst a sea of green is in no way as bad as getting embarrassed at home in the RC, that's a very odd take.
-
@Tim said in All Blacks 2025:
Ex-All Black fuels speculation of rift between Robertson's coaching staff
Ex-All Black Israel Dagg has added fuel to speculation that a fall out with assistant coach Scott Hansen is the reason that Jason Holland has departed the All Blacks
Dagg's solution is for greater Crusaders echo chamber in coaching?
-
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2025:
It's not a fucking disaster!
Says the apologist for a record loss. At home.
-
Put aside the ridiculous defence by reference to percentages and "what could've been", the simple fact remains what your eyes are telling you isn't imagined. A team near incapable of scoring in the final quarter, incoherent style of play somehow making us look like the unfit team on the field, poor impact from the bench, record losses, poor selections and a coach that looks mystified in media situations.
Meanwhile our opposition look like they have a clear structure they've bought into and understand.
-
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2025:
@Nepia It's certainly Devil's advocacy in terms of the usual Fern circle-jerk.
If your post is an unusual Fern circle-jerk, it's still an interesting one.
I don't think, personally, the numbers by themselves have as much weight as before. Not with strong sides sending B or C squads. Not with the gaps in depth and performance across the top 12 or so teams.
And these discussions have too many subjective post-event criteria.
If we all agreed on what would be good goals beforehand, maybe there'd be less argument afterwards? -
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2025:
@Mauss Ha - pointed that at you, because I thought I'd get a well considered response and I'm not disappointed!
You got me. But it’s an interesting discussion so I don’t mind being pulled into it.
But, if you've coached Japan or Italy or Fiji - I reckon that's got minimal additional value compared to coaching the Crusaders. And even those who've coached bigger teams struggle to translate that into meaningful statistics.
I can sympathize with your point because I also think that just having international experience in itself isn’t particularly valuable. John Kirwan coached Italy and Japan; Milton Haig coached Georgia; Alama Ieremia coached Samoa; Wayne Pivac coached Wales. I’m pretty sure that all of these guys would be terrible AB coaches.
But the point is that coaching internationally can make you a better coach: it forces you to adapt your systems to local strengths. Schmidt coached (alongside Cotter) a possession- and forward-based game at Clermont, then turned Leinster into an attacking machine before emphasizing kick- and ruck-heavy game plans with Ireland. Tony Brown turned Japanese fleet-footedness and mobility into an attacking advantage before adapting his attacking shape in order to incorporate big carriers with the Springboks. Cotter emphasizes possession, forward grunt and basics wherever he goes but is able to adapt as well, whether it’s Clermont, Scotland, Fiji or the Blues.
So this brings us back to Robertson. I agree that you don’t need experiences in order to know or learn certain things. But, looking at the current AB team, Robertson seems to have not understood one of the primary lessons of coaching in different environments: you need to respect local strengths and traditions. What is All Blacks rugby? Two things: basic skill execution done to perfection and counter-attacking dominance. What has the Rugby Championship shown once again? That the skillsets aren’t good enough and that the counter-attack is basically non-existent.
Perhaps if Robertson had coached Wales, Fiji or Japan, he would’ve realized that you can’t simply shape the team to your own designs without integrating and enabling that country’s strengths. It seems like a remarkably easy lesson but, looking at the ABs’ performances in 2024 and 2025, it’s something that this coaching group has consistently failed to implement.
