New All Black Coach
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@junior said in New All Black Coach:
@gt12 said in New All Black Coach:
If I were honest, I think it feels like how I would describe much of NZ though, but that's a much longer post and would be well off topic.
Would love for you to elaborate on this - I have felt similar, but I am so far away from NZ, and have been away for so long, that I just don't know if my impression accords with reality.
Honestly feels like one that needs a beer in front of us at a pub. I'll do my best to stay on topic and fair warning, I've had a few drinks.
NZ wants to act like it sits at the top of developed nations but it just doesn't occupy such a position. We aren't a service / multinational hub like Ireland and don't have the finance sector of London. This translates across to rugby in that we just cannot match the resources of those countries - pragmatism should lie at the heart of New Zealand's success, and much of the dress-up appears to be trying to make NZ look more sophisticated than we are.
We see the impact of this attitude in spending which adds far less value than is provided. That would be fine if cost/benefit wasn't an issue but we don't have the wealth of a Norway, our GDP (PPP) puts us roughly alongside Lithuania and Slovenia. About 15% of the population live in poverty. How does this translate across to rugby? Why would we expect to be able to fund and support 19 professional teams in a country with a poverty rate twice that of Ireland, which btw, has four professional teams? Where is the money to actually do this sustainably being generated?
There seems to be a focus on putting in processes to make sure that things look like they are being done fairly or professionally, but much doesn't actually add value. New Zealand's productivity at $49/h apparently ranks alongside Romania at $47/h. The coach selection processes reeks of this with selection committees and job descriptions and interview rounds for a job that everyone knows will go to Razor. Where is value being generated with that? South Africa can't afford to do such shit and doesn't. Devlin today was talking about Team New Zealand trying to relate every expenditure to 'will it make the boat go faster' and if the answer is no, it doesn't get any money. This attitude of efficiency and getting the most for your buck has leaked out of NZ, which raises a question, in a country where everything is expensive, is the benefit is worth the cost? In the case of the NZRU, I would argue that it's a shitshow that has consistently failed to provide an appropriate return on the potential it has.
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@gt12 said in New All Black Coach:
NZ wants to act like it sits at the top of developed nations but it just doesn't occupy such a position.
Well done, you kept that short, when you could easily have written a book on the subject.
As far as the NZRFU goes; I think their annual revenue ranks them 3rd in the world compared to other national rugby unions. Behind only England and France. So in that respect they are heavy weights in the rugby world.
But in all other respects (apart from the field records of their teams) they are very, very small beer.
It is the national teams (one in particular) that generate the cash, most of that coming from off-shore.
That is why the performance of the national team is so critical to the rest of the game in NZ.
If they had to rely on domestic funding they’d be completely fucked.I read an interesting economics paper recently in this subject. When I find the link ill put it out.
Quite short, only a few pages.
One piece in it struck me; amusingly the NZ economy has been studied in detail by South American economists. They have been trying figure out why the NZ standard of living has been defying gravity. When all standard economic measures say it should be quite a bit lower than it is.
They have an interesting conclusion.Quite sad really, when I was young it was quite different.
For about a century, up to 1970, NZ had a standard of living as high as any country in the world. Up there with the US, and higher than Aus.
That all changed in the 1970’s. And anyone under 50 years of age will have no concept of that.
The international economic winds were not kind to NZ.
But even so, the standard of living in NZ has never dropped as far as the economic indicators would have suggested that perhaps it should. -
@mariner4life said in New All Black Coach:
not in my eyes. in a normal game you spend half the time defending.
More than half if you’re good enough on offence too and score quickly. It’s not uncommon to see a team well ahead on the scoreboard with under half of the ball. .
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@canefan said in New All Black Coach:
@Dan54 said in New All Black Coach:
@canefan said in New All Black Coach:
@Victor-Meldrew said in New All Black Coach:
@canefan said in New All Black Coach:
@Victor-Meldrew said in New All Black Coach:
@gt12 said in New All Black Coach:
I personally look at some of the posts here about Kirk being able to fix it with the same trepidation as I had when Razor was announced and everyone was announcing him as the saviour. I certainly hope that Kirk can make enough change to bring the organisation to a professional level of competency, but the same things being said about him as the man to fix things were said about Razor over the last few years.
That's a very fair point, but from what I seen/heard, Kirk is very aware of the issues and understands the need to fix the underlying processes rather than just a short-term fix. He's also an astute businessman who can probably see things from outside the NZR box
A lot is going to depend on who the new CEO is, of course, but at least we now have someone who's prepared to face problems rather than hide them.
I hope for institutional change. But that takes time to implement.
For sure. Problems much deeper than the current coaching setup. At least these are now being aired
While that is happening, we need serious changes to the current coaching group if we are to have any chance in two years, and even more immediate is not getting flogged even worse next season
Tricky situation to handle. If Robertson stays (unlikely to be sacked) and if even 10% of the rumours are true around friction in camp and fall-out with other coaches, then it's going to take a radical overhaul of the coaching setup with some direct day-day control from NZR
I thought Smith was meant to be an advisor? Either the current coaching team are barely using him, they're not listening to what he tells them, or most unlikely he's telling them bad intel. If Kirk decided these guys needed supervision, it's gotta be someone else, someone who has the power to push change and who has the direct ear of the CEO once appointed. I wonder if GH is free and wants a part time gig?
Yep, but advisor is just that, You can advise anything, but doesn't have to be listened to. I got impression that Smith was there if the coaching group wanted advice, he wasn't meant to be an overseer/boss type thing, you can't ever have that.
It would appear that the kids need some parental guidance after all....
Naa I don't even like the advisor thing, if the kids can't do it ,you got the wrong kids.
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Speaking of defence coaches ,
I’m very interested to see how dave kidwell goes at the highlanders and how he works with Jamie Joseph, that league influence in defence to my knowledge hasn’t been used in nz yet ?
Particularly with Jamie the favourite right now as the next AB coach , maybe that more aggressive mindset is what we need .
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@mohikamo said in New All Black Coach:
As far as the NZRFU goes; I think their annual revenue ranks them 3rd in the world compared to other national rugby unions
But that revenue has to fund the entire professional, and much of the amateur, game in NZ.
In those other big nations clubs are self sustaining outside of that national revenue.
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@Dan54 said in New All Black Coach:
Kidwell did quite good with Puma's defence didn't he? Be interesting to see how the Highlanders' defence goes next year. And you could be right he could be looking at long term with JJ.
He was argies defence coach when they got their first win against us , their up in our face defence caused us problems on that day but then we scored plenty in the next game from memory.
But I remember seeing an interview, he had no aspirations to coach in rugby initially , was looking more at the league route.
He and cheika were neighbours, became friends and used to chat footy , then cheika got the argie job and asked him if he was interested in giving it a shot and it evolved from there. -
Kidwell was a terrible league head coach, but like Kearney maybe a guy far more suited to an assistant role
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@mariner4life said in New All Black Coach:
Kidwell was a terrible league head coach, but like Kearney maybe a guy far more suited to an assistant role
Same with Tony Brown. And maybe that's the thing. The All Blacks need to find a group of coaches with their own areas of expertise to concentrate on who can work together. Not just a group of mates they can slot into (square peg, round hole) the various roles.
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@ShaquilleOatmeal said in New All Black Coach:
@mariner4life said in New All Black Coach:
Kidwell was a terrible league head coach, but like Kearney maybe a guy far more suited to an assistant role
Same with Tony Brown. And maybe that's the thing. The All Blacks need to find a group of coaches with their own areas of expertise to concentrate on who can work together. Not just a group of mates they can slot into (square peg, round hole) the various roles.
We should definitely get Cory Jane, or an AFL player in to show these guys how to deal with high balls for a start
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@mariner4life said in New All Black Coach:
Kidwell was a terrible league head coach, but like Kearney maybe a guy far more suited to an assistant role
Yeah and Kearney was well respected by Bellamy and bennett as an assistant, some guys make good assistants and that’s their limit , you see it a lot in afl .where they specialise in teaching one area of the game .
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I reckon there would be literally a thousand guys running around playing Aussie rules at everything from 14 years old up who could put a cross kick on the button better than our ABs can. That's where the coaching is needed in my opinion, and it's where we lose the contest: we might be 50% on opposition kicks, but they eat up 80% of ours.
A guy like Clarke is genuinely world class in the air, but if the kick is too deep it means nothing. -
@reprobate NIck Evans played AFL didnt he?
Weren't there whispers he was coming back at one point, Wiki says he was with England as thier attack coach in 2023, otherwise still with Harlequins.
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@taniwharugby yup, though in NZ. I think my point is that you don't need a fancy coach to be a shitload better than where we are currently. Schoolkids do it better.
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@reprobate yep, many of our skills all round have deteriorated slowly over the past 7 or 8 years.
The drum I keep banging is getting a broad view of improvements in the game (nationwide) and get a plan to improve these, and I keep going back to when the Cron way of scrumming had us as the most dominant, Cron was hitting all the provinces and running clinics.
That has its good and bad points, but the main point is that at the time, NZR from top down was trying to improve our scrummaging.
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@taniwharugby absolutely. Top down analysis of trends and skills, rule changes and opportunities they provide etc, and provide those resources for all teams. They can then choose to do/use what they want, but centralisation should be to our advantage.
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@taniwharugby said in New All Black Coach:
That has its good and bad points, but the main point is that at the time, NZR from top down was trying to improve our scrummaging.
Definitely - it worked well for us.
Problem is if we get the wrong coaching going on we make players actively worse. It's a real risk - but with a small population we have to lean on our advantages, and the big one is centralised led alignment in play style/skillsets/contracting
