The All Blacks coaches are to increase their involvement in New Zealand’s five Super Rugby franchises next season, helping them with strategy and also player management in the crucial World Cup year.
While Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen have regularly made one-week visits to the franchises during their time involved with the All Blacks their commitment will take a step up next year with the expansion of the tournament to 15 teams and played over 24 weeks.
New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew said the All Blacks coaches would help with planning and tactical appraisal.
Henry and his assistants have mastered the way the game has been played under the new law interpretations this year and are willing to pass on their secrets to the level below them.
“They are mapping the way the game is going, the trends that are developing and they will be sharing that with the coaches and players in each of the franchises,” Tew said. “It will be very carefully planned and managed and it will be done to enhance what our Super rugby guys are doing.”
He felt their input could be invaluable, especially during the season when coaches sometimes found it difficult to “take a step back mid-campaign” and assess things.
With new head coaches involved at the Highlanders (Jamie Joseph) and Hurricanes (Mark Hammett) and young coaches involved with other teams, Tew said help from experienced All Blacks coaches would help development.
The All Blacks coaches met with the Super rugby coaches in Wellington this week to look at next year’s tournament and also outline their hopes with planning towards the World Cup.
Tew said that while New Zealand had no official resting policy for players there would clearly need to be management of key personnel heading into the World Cup.
He anticipated there could be 35-40 players who the All Blacks coaches would like to see handled carefully with “some time away from their squads”.
“There is obviously a need for us to find a balance. If we got to Rugby World Cup next year where we pull up short because all of our players are completely knackered then there will be a public hanging of all of us for not looking after the players … just as there was a public hanging last time for doing too much. We are trying to find an appropriate balance,” Tew said.
Tew said the Super rugby coaches acknowledged this. He said he had “never seen a better level of collaboration and co-operation” between the All Blacks coaches and the Super rugby coaches than the current feel.
Meanwhile the NZRU board has signed off on an agreement that will allow up to two foreign players into each of New Zealand’s Super Rugby franchises.
The move comes as the competition is expanded to 15 teams next year although it’s unlikely any players will be involved in 2011.
While the idea had been mooted as New Zealand looked to jazz up its participation in the new-look competition the board formally endorsed the proposal at its meeting this week.
It comes with conditions:
– There must be no equivalent New Zealand eligible player
By Duncan Johnstone
The important issue here is that PDV does not follow suit and get involved in our Super Franchised.
Unless he is the one taking lessons
Will we ever share our knowledge here in South Africa. They all work together for the good of All Black rugby.
Can we just dream of something like this?
Superbul, the problem in SA rugby is most of these guys are looking out for number 1, and number 1 isn’t rugby
@ biltongbek:
Biltonbek my friend we badmouth Peter all the time, i am not guilty, but really this farked up stupid playing Springbok team of ours came with the most incredible fight backs this year. Our fight backs was so brilliant that it needed hotheaded Referees to prevent us from stealing these games.
I really dont think ALL is well in our team but dammit guys how can a smashed , bruised , totally disorientated Springbok team under Peter come back into matches like they did. This fight we showed is why i would love it if Peter and Team get a chance to redeem themself in next years World Cup. They deserve it.
superBul wrote:
If the refereeing was up to standard we could have prevented the AB’s from a clean sweep. Hell they have enough titles why gift them more. They DONT deserve the 6-0. Never will i concede that. I am not a good loser, If we did not deserve a win against them then the Aussies surely did in the last test.
Superbul, as much as I want to support PDV, and for that matter have confidence in the management, how can I believe in them when there are obvious shortcomings in the way we are coached, managed, solutions provided for poor performance etc.
We simply get no answers as to how we are going to improve our short comings.
Ontop of that this political correctness of the media that does not allow any criticism towards certain elements is not condusive to being honest and admitting we have problems
@ biltongbek:
Go back to the article and see the way they do it in New Zealand. What do we do? We have coaches like Jake who wants Peters job, never offered to help him. We have unions like WP who said NO, NO , NO to help asked for a defensive coach. Others too? The Lions was immediately defensive when the name of John Mitchell was mentioned.
We dont work for SA Rugby in this country, only for our own sake.
“Henry and his assistants have mastered the way the game has been played under the new law interpretations this year and are willing to pass on their secrets to the level below them”
Is there any chance that we will do this?
Yes, the problem is South Africans in general live their lives by that principal, we don’t want the sun to shine on our neighbors.
@ biltongbek:
If we could take the article as a starting point to build a blueprint for SA, we might get somewhere.
“They are mapping the way the game is going, the trends that are developing and they will be sharing that with the coaches and players in each of the franchises,” Tew said. “It will be very carefully planned and managed and it will be done to enhance what our Super rugby guys are doing.”
Super, we can emulate their blueprint,but there are two very basic issues that need to be in place before any of this is executable.
1. Honesty and Transparency
2. Official /Unofficial quotas.
@ biltongbek:
What happened to Beast, is he really that bad now or is it just the dam citizenship issues still hanging like a albatross around his neck.
Super, I don’t think there are any more issues, he now has a SA passport, and I am confident he will be in the EOYT.
Remember he only started plaaying after his injury midway throught the Tri Nations, so he wasn’t match fit at the time and Guthro was playing up a storm
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