Foster, Robertson etc
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@MN5 said in Foster must go:
@antipodean said in Foster must go:
@Crucial said in Foster must go:
@antipodean said in Foster must go:
“That statement from the CEO really annoys me,” Kirwan said.
“Why doesn’t Mark Robinson come out and say we’ve got faith [in Ian Foster]? The CEO needs to come out and go ‘we’ve done a review six months ago, we’re confident of turning it around, [it’s] only three test matches.’
“He’s throwing his coach under the bus, people!”
Well, he'd know all about that.
Situation maybe feeling a bit to familiar to him perhaps?Well it might be, but I'm not very sympathetic to it. Quite frankly I'm sick of seeing "mental health" used as a synonym for "don't critique me" for poor performances in professional settings. These aren't amateurs who stepped up to the plate because no one else would do it.
There will be MASSIVE pressure on Foster as there should be and you’re right. He could have said no to the job and he’s been paid a huge salary. On face value it is very easy to put the boot in.
……but the more empathetic side of me does feel for him a bit and how stressed, unhappy and unhealthy he looks when he fronts the media.
He just looks utterly resigned to a shit situation and bereft of ideas of how to sort it.
Except the obvious idea - resign with grace and dignity.
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@Billy-Tell said in Foster must go:
@Daffy-Jaffy said in Foster must go:
But I don't understand. Rennie is a brilliant coach...
I'm pretty sure he could do at least as good a job with England as Eddie. Compare what he has to work with to Foster.
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@Bones said in Foster must go:
@Billy-Tell said in Foster must go:
@Daffy-Jaffy said in Foster must go:
But I don't understand. Rennie is a brilliant coach...
I'm pretty sure he could do at least as good a job with England as Eddie. Compare what he has to work with to Foster.
I understand he has less talent but a 40% win rate is still pretty poor. He has few fanboys from his chiefs days but as I lived in the NH I followed glasgow a bit when he was in charge. He’s a good coach but he’s not a brilliant coach imho.
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@junior said in Foster must go:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Foster must go:
@junior said in Foster must go:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Foster must go:
@junior said in Foster must go:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Foster must go:
@Billy-Tell said in Foster must go:
I’d accept keeping the bledisloe and not losing to wales or Scotland on end of year tour. Oh and going 2-0 vs Argentina. Can’t expect a guy to come in at short notice and not potentially lose to SA in SA.
Not good enough. We'd be treading water or going backwards compared to Foster with no guarantee things are really on the up.
Enough mediocrity - put success measures in place and have an action plan if they aren't met.
Whatever we do, we run the risk of tings getting worse. But that in itself is not a reason to do nothing to try to turn around the currently dire situation.
Of course not.
We will all have to accept that with a change in coach, things may just get worse before they get better. We may also get a dead cat bounce where things get immediately worse, but then revert to what we currently have.
Nine Tests (to the end of '22) is more than enough for a decent coach to cement progress. And we'd need to listening for alarm bells if there isn't significant improvement by the end of the RC.
All this will tell us is that things are in fact worse than perhaps we had realised and that things would have gotten worse under Foster.
That's just a ready-made get-out-of-jail for non-improvement. People with far more knowledge of the game than me are saying we have superior players and skills and there are coaches out there with a game plan, able to build confidence and with a winning track record to turn things around.
We need improvement, not a coach telling us it would have been worse under the other guy - not even Foster used that as an excuse.
I would rather we accept these risks and be proactive about trying to avoid them by appointing a new coach with a proven track record of success - whether that's Razor, Schmidt or someone else like Gatland - than continue on with the current team of coaches who have little to no success in their own right.
Totally agree. But let's stop the excuses and acceptance of mediocrity. We have the players and we put in a coach with a track recording of winning. He either get a better track record than Foster got in '21 or considers his position and NZR has a contingency plan in place.
I think we may be a little at cross purposes here - I don't disagree with anything you have written above, I suppose I am being realistic in saying that a new coach may not be able to arrest all of the malaise. Just because this coach may not be the solution does not however mean that Foster is not part of the problem and therefore needs to go.
For what it's worth, I do think Razor or Schmidt - or even Gats for 16 months or so - could improve the team. What that means in terms of results, I don't know - but with anyone of those three, you can be confident that there might be some kind of plan in place and it might even be discernible.
I guess the point I'm making is, if it is just Foster that's the main problem, I don't see why it would take long to see improvement with a new coach, and 9 Tests seems long enough for me to see if the new bloke is up to it.
Any more than 3 losses would be way worse than Foster's win average and I'd be asking some serious questions at that stage. And there has to be a contingency plan in place if that happens.
Everyone almost to a man here can see that the problem is not just Foster - there are systemic "NZ Rugby problems" and there are "All Black problems", some of which are downstream of the "NZ Rugby problems". Sacking Foster is obviously not going to resolve the "NZ Rugby problems", I don't believe anyone has said they would and, if they have, that person (or persons) is obviously a moron.
Obviously. I've been saying exactly that for quite some time and I'm only talking about fixing the problems that changing the coaching staff will fix.
But, in all likelihood, it will resolve the key "All Black problem" of not getting the most out of the talent we have available.
I just don't think we can work any more on the basis of "all likelihood". Either we and NZR believe a new coach is needed and will improve things or we don't. If we do (and we should), then put a stake in the ground and have the confidence to test the success of that change and tweak as necessary. Anything else is cop-out and a repeat of the last 2 years
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@Victor-Meldrew It's a high performance role, and the standards should be high. if they're not met, changes should happen. That requires a significant change from the NZRU, who gave us a debacle of a selection process then appointed a coach without successful head coaching experience, then extended his contract far further that they should have based on nothing.
To go from that to dropping someone in the deep end taking over a rabble with bugger-all prep before SA in SA and then judging them on that would be fish-tailing. There should be a sensible middle ground, with clear goals, and a little leeway for the short notice.
Regardless the current coaches have to go. Not only is there no visible improvement, they are going backwards. -
If they know a change has to happen then do it immediately. I would rather we go to SA without A head coach in place than go there to give Fozzie more time to get it right. Surely, the penny has dropped that what is required is beyond his skill level?
The answers to the coaching problem are all NZR employees. Schmidt and Robertson. Schmidt may not want the head coach role due to personal circumstances but he can be part of Robertson team.
It’s not like they have to headhunt new people from outside our organisation or buy out expensive contracts and wait for notice periods.
I saw in the herald today that the cost of paying contracts out was about $2m. That is not a lot of money and shouldn’t be a blocker for a newly cashed up organisation.
They did a major review 6 months ago. They don’t need another review 3 games later.
There was a lot of talk last year (and rightly so) about players being in A covid bubble for months after a long tour (11 away tests) but now at home and fresh we have gone backwards from last year and even from those losses last year.
We are in crisis mode and the one thing that the NZR cannot afford is the All Blacks losing and being exposed as a poor team.
Be decisive, act now, get the right guys in place and give them more than they ask for.
I think 3 weeks together in SA is an ideal time for a new coaching group and squad to come together quickly and get them on the right path. (They may lose but essentially they have nothing to lose at this point).
(Not all of that was replying to you Bov but I got up a head of steam as I was writing! 😉)
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SA don’t really care about what happens between RWC’s
Right or wrongly we do.
And they have been awful since the World Cup so if we are matching them, then it shows exactly how crap we are
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It’s not the gate that is the problem.
The ABs are the flagship brand for NZR. Essentially they pay for most things. If that brand starts to diminish then it will affect broadcasting right, sponsorships and further investment.
The ABs becoming also rans is the doomsday scenario for the NZR
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@nostrildamus Agree also and nothing an Aussie coming straight out and telling it like it is.
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@DaGrubster that too.
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And will achieve nothing, the weight of public opinion (mainly very visible through social media) because of poor results will mean that change will happen.
Fozzie’s position is now untenable - virtually the whole country wants him gone and the media are saying the same thing. It’s basically publicly available information for any investor/sponsor to read.
He cannot be expected to be at his best (don’t laugh!) or get the best out of his squad under this kind of scrutiny and pressure. He wouldn’t be able to without it tbh
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@Billy-Tell said in Foster must go:
@Daffy-Jaffy said in Foster must go:
But I don't understand. Rennie is a brilliant coach...
It’s also about your opponents. 16 of Rennie’s 23 games have been France, England, New Zealand and South Africa. Not much padding going on there,
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@reprobate said in Foster must go:
There should be a sensible middle ground, with clear goals, and a little leeway for the short notice.
9 Tests to see some significant approval seems more than reasonable to me.
Regardless the current coaches have to go. Not only is there no visible improvement, they are going backwards.
And we should apply exactly the same criteria to any new coaches after the November EOYT.
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When looking at improvement i think you'd need to look at how they are playing not just purely results - especially when the new coach would be asked to go Africa for 2 tests straight away.
The problem with Foster isn't just the results - it's how they are playing.
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What is an acceptable win rate in this ultra-competitive environment? France with 73% is the high water mark, perhaps we just need to accept that the Henry/Hansen area will likely never be repeated and if we go to the Nations League system, we will play the top teams once every year. With such competition I don't think we can except the dominance we once had.
I think for me a goal should be 70% and the losses are close and we can see a gameplan etc.
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@MN5 said in Foster must go:
@antipodean said in Foster must go:
@Crucial said in Foster must go:
@antipodean said in Foster must go:
“That statement from the CEO really annoys me,” Kirwan said.
“Why doesn’t Mark Robinson come out and say we’ve got faith [in Ian Foster]? The CEO needs to come out and go ‘we’ve done a review six months ago, we’re confident of turning it around, [it’s] only three test matches.’
“He’s throwing his coach under the bus, people!”
Well, he'd know all about that.
Situation maybe feeling a bit to familiar to him perhaps?Well it might be, but I'm not very sympathetic to it. Quite frankly I'm sick of seeing "mental health" used as a synonym for "don't critique me" for poor performances in professional settings. These aren't amateurs who stepped up to the plate because no one else would do it.
There will be MASSIVE pressure on Foster as there should be and you’re right. He could have said no to the job and he’s been paid a huge salary. On face value it is very easy to put the boot in.
……but the more empathetic side of me does feel for him a bit and how stressed, unhappy and unhealthy he looks when he fronts the media.
He just looks utterly resigned to a shit situation and bereft of ideas of how to sort it.
I don’t disagree with that. Ironically I suspect that Foster is a good bloke and would be fun to have a beer and a yarn with. But he just doesn’t seem to know what to do to get this group of talented athletes working coherently together.
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@chimoaus For Fozzie to be up with Hansen and Henry he basically only needs to have won four games that he didn't.
Cards have a bit more influence on outcomes than in the Henry era especially, but it's not hard to find Foster games that a better coach would have won.
The TAB pretty clearly thought Saturday's game. The loss to the Argies. The first draw vs Australia. Any loss to Australia.
