Poll: Best AB coach - professional era
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@Nepia said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@ACT-Crusader said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
Went for Mitchell.
Dark days between 98-02 (signs started in 97 too) and he IMO got it back on track and started to build the foundation of our success for the years ahead.
Picked some very young players too that had talent but still had big question marks.
03 RWC, outcome was unfortunate but an experienced Aussie team had a night.
This might be your most contrarian post ever.
Mitchell's period of success in 2003 was based on Henry's Blues gameplan, and then he neutered it at the RWC by not allowing the forwards to ruck.
Henry had to completely overhaul pretty much everything that went on during Domeheads reign of psychobabble. Pretty much every player's book from that era mentions how fucked the culture was.
That team would have been better with Deans as the head coach, instead he hitched his wagon to Mitchell and blew his chance to be AB coach.
And this might be your most broken record post….
There were a number of differences to the attack that Henry’s Auckland team used that what Mitchell (and Deans) used, the key one being how the midfield was setup and deployed.
Mitchell wasn’t a great man manager and he’s even admitted to not handling some of the more controversial decisions well enough. But there was a transformation of how our forwards played particularly on the defensive side which bore out in the results.
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@canefan said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@African-Monkey said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@mariner4life said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
He'll get no love because he's a weird fluffybunny
But Mitch in successive weekends put 50 past South Africa and Aussie at their houses, and then won back the Bledisloe. Brought through some great ABs.
Yeah it's funny with Mitchell, because even though he lost the public, we did some insane things in 2003, and he wasn't afraid to make big calls.
Putting McDonald into midfield at RWC2003 wasn't his smartest move
Deans selected the backline, you can't blame Mitchell for that.
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@mohikamo said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@Jet said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
Christian Cullen is my favourite player of all time.
He's not my favorite of all time, I maybe can go back a bit further than you, to a very similar player.
But he's right there.
Barry Sanders is the only stepper I rate higher than him all-time.That's an interesting test.
I only vaguely follow NFL - but, I know who Barry Sanders is.
I can go back to Bee Gee as a 19 year old, but I can't really make an honest assessment.
Slightly later, there was Batty and Stu Wilson - and then JK, but none of them were really Cullen-like.
I'll have to guess Bruce Robertson?
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@mariner4life said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@canefan said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@African-Monkey said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@mariner4life said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
He'll get no love because he's a weird fluffybunny
But Mitch in successive weekends put 50 past South Africa and Aussie at their houses, and then won back the Bledisloe. Brought through some great ABs.
Yeah it's funny with Mitchell, because even though he lost the public, we did some insane things in 2003, and he wasn't afraid to make big calls.
Putting McDonald into midfield at RWC2003 wasn't his smartest move
with hindsight yes. But at the time it didn't seem that wrong.
We all thought that the 2003 semi was a formality given the form Australia showed in their quarter when compared to ours.
What became apparent was that not having Tana, we were without guys who could get us over the gain line. With the depowering of the pack, it left everything up to Jerry, and Kev right next to the ruck. The Aussies just kept knocking us over, took away all counter-attack, and we had nothing else. Smart coaching from Eddie, and in hindsight not so good from Mitch and Deans.
Plus Leon was kicking the goals.
In the QF against the Boks he played pretty well at centre and against probably a more robust midfield pairing in Muller and De Wet Barry than the Aussies.
But agree on how Steady Eddie used some of his old heads to limit our opportunities and then make a couple of big plays through the middle that exposed Leon at least twice.
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Those big wins away to South Africa and Australia in the 2003 Tri Nations were the high points for Cueball. He was the last All Blacks coach to win back the Bledisloe Cup. And yes, he gave debuts to Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Tony Woodcock and Ma'a Nonu.
But on the other side of the ledger, he dropped Christian Cullen, dropped Jonah the Great, gave an All Blacks debut to Ben Atiga, kept the Suitcase as his Captain, lost back-to-back games to England and lost by 12 points a RWC semi final against an average Aussie team.
He didn't get my vote.
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@ACT-Crusader I reckon they'd selected a team to beat England and I don't think they expected Oz to be a massive challenge.
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe they should have switched Mils and Leon at centre and fullback.
Seems to be a reasonable story that Tana could've played - and maybe Leon should've played fullback and done the kicking. I recall they didn;t want to disturb the back three that was a primary weapon.
The best kicker in the team by a wide margin was Benny Blair and maybe they should've primed him to play wing or even fullback.
Wise after the event.
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@Chris-B said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@ACT-Crusader I reckon they'd selected a team to beat England and I don't think they expected Oz to be
The best kicker in the team by a wide margin was Benny Blair and maybe they should've primed him to play wing or even fullback.There was a young fella on the bench called Daniel Carter who turned out to be not a bad kicker..........
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@Chris-B said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@sparky Too early, though.
Carlos was locked in, just not a good kicker.
We could've fielded 10. Carter 12. Nonu from the squad - but, I don't think it was a good idea.
Mauger-Carter-Nonu was one hell of a depth chart at 12 TBF.
Always had faith that Ma'a would be a Great one in the end.
I remember screaming at the TV in that second half against Oz in the 2003 RWC Semi to get DC on. He wouldn't have won the game, but he'd have given Eddie and co a fright.
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@sparky You weren't on the Fern in 2007 then, unless you were masquerading as a guy called Mojo (who was from Hurricanes-land) .
We were the last two guys who wanted Ma'a in the 2007 squad and unfortunately he shat the bed (again) in his final trial. We had to concede.
Someone wrote - "don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, Nonu!"
It was a major surpise to everyone - except maybe Mojo - that he came good!
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@Chris-B I lurked in the background in 2002 and 2003, but I think I joined in 2004 as Sparky (with a capital S), deleted that account in 2009 and then rejoined in 2010 as sparky with a small s.
Yeah, I was one of those two guys arguing for Ma'a in 2007.
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@sparky Nonu hadn’t played any footy at 12 at that stage - only wing and centre - so he would’ve been considered as a centre option going into the Boks QF test I reckon.
The first concern was the goal kicking. Secondly keeping some stability which was the Auckland boys in the back 3 and the 10-12 combo of Carlos and Mauger which had been pretty effective.
Selections at RWCs aren’t easy. Mitchell, Henry and Hansen learned some tough lessons.
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@sparky said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
@Chris-B I lurked in the background in 2002 and 2003, but I think I joined in 2004 as Sparky (with a capital S), deleted that account in 2009 and then rejoined in 2010 as sparky with a small s.
Yeah, I was one of those two guys arguing for Ma'a in 2007.
You must have folded early, because it was just me and Mojo at the end - and we took some heat!
One of my finest hours - along with the Andy Ellis debate, when I became the Fern's expert on halfback play!
n.b. @Nepia - have you seen that the Mighty Kahn has been selected for the Heartland team at age 43 (I think)!
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@sparky He's hosting a TV show about shifting houses and I believe he might have won an award at the Chelsea flower show.
He had a brief period whre he was first choice AB halfback and everyone said he was shit. I said he wasn't and he'd be picked again - and I was right, again, and again.
My memory is that actually @Kirwan agreed with me - which is about as rare as Nepia!
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Maybe a bit unfair, but I think Hansen simply continued Ted's work rather than moved the team on. Not all Hansen's fault, but I feel the rot set in under him.
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@Victor-Meldrew I thought Hansen did an utterly fantastic job from 2012 to 2016. It was a brave decision to go for an even faster game after the 2011 win.
But yeah the rot set in.
We spilled the 2017 Lions series when it should have been a 3-0 win. Too many rough diamonds were left unpolished. 2019 was always going to a tough RWC to win, but some poor selections didn't help matters.
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@No-Quarter said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
A wonderful coach and a wonderful person as well.
Not just Rugby.
Welsh friend's wife is a head teacher. Went along to a Ted talk on education (nothing to do with Rugby) and though it game-changing. Was blown away by his thinking and knowledge on the subject.
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@ACT-Crusader said in Poll: Best AB coach - professional era:
And this might be your most broken record post….
I'm sure it's not even close, I have a lot of broken records.
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@Victor-Meldrew You might find Gregor Paul's book on Hansen quite interesting.
Foundations were definitely set by Sir Ted - but, Hansen had the challenge of, now we've finally won the World Cup again - what next?
He set the target - initially - of being the most dominant rugby team of all time - and after 2015 (when they thought that might be achieved), I think exteded it to the most dominant sports team ever.
It's pretty interesting if you're interested in the transitions between the coaches. Biography, so Hansen doesn't really speak (very disappointing), but lots of the people surrounding do.
