Kicked into touch

New Zealand Rugby has been blasted for seeking a new All Blacks coach before the World Cup. PAUL THOMAS has a different view.

- PAUL THOMAS

New Zealand Rugby undoubtedly has a talent for making its job harder than it should be. It's also the case, though, that its rolling, constantly mutating public-relations crisis brings to mind the old saying, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

The national union is currently being criticised for its intention to appoint the All Blacks coach for 2024 and beyond before rather than after the Rugby World Cup that takes place in France in September/October. There have been multiple objections to this timetable: it's unfair on incumbent Ian Foster since he won't be judged on how he handles his biggest assignment; if someone else is appointed, Foster will go to the World Cup as a lame duck; it will be a distraction for the coaching staff and players; there's no rush because recent appointments have reduced other contenders' offshore options; NZR will be ridiculed if an unwanted Foster guides the All Blacks to a World Cup triumph. (That outcome would have the secondary effect of defusing the distraction and lame-duck claims.)

Yet in 2019, NZR was savaged for doing exactly what the critics, stridently led by Foster, are now insisting it should do: it delayed choosing a replacement for Steve Hansen until after the World Cup, by which time a couple of our leading coaches had decided a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush and taken positions at other national teams.

The 2011 World Cup-winning coach, Sir Graham Henry, a member of the interviewing panel that recommended Foster's appointment, called the process a "cock-up" that effectively ruled out the man Henry regarded as the best-qualified candidate: Dave Rennie, recently and ruthlessly sacked by Rugby Australia.