All Blacks 2025
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I’ve mentioned Bleyendaal before - would love to know if he’s got an out clause in his contract.
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@mariner4life said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris said in All Blacks 2025:
Tyler Bleyandaal another good Canterbury and Crusader man.

It is good to see you so excited enjoy.
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@SouthernMann said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris My apologies. Hansen does at least have some credentials though.
Ellison on the other hand has failed upwards.
> If it does come to it, Jamie Joseph’s massive advantage in 2028 would be his coaching group would like be highly qualified with an array of background.
Joseph's big challenge is getting the Highlanders humming. If he wants to be the AB coach he needs to coach a winning team. Two things need to happen for him to be a viable option at that point. Razor needs to fail to a point where NZR and the board has no choice but to open his position and Joseph needs to turn around a franchise that has battled for years to one that is winning and a dominant force. If he can't do that. He isn't an option.
I think you’re being a bit over the top here.
Robertson only needs to be imperfect enough to make NZ Rugby think there might be something better available. And if he wins the World Cup, he’s off to coach another team anyway apparently.
Joseph doesn’t need to make the Highlanders a dominant force. To put himself in the frame, he only needs to prove he can take a struggling team and significantly improve their performance to the point where he looks capable of getting the best from the All Blacks.
And I don’t think it’s all about the head coach anyway. The ideal situation would see a team of coaches working together, all excellent at the particular areas they’re assigned.
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The fact he gets to go on the EOYT is another nail in the coffin of the idea the All Blacks are a high performance unit.
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@Landers92 said in All Blacks 2025:
Oil update.
Jason Holland to step down after the end of year tour I’m hearing.
Reliable source, as always will wear it if wrong but have no reason to believe it isn’t accurate. Very interesting development. Can expect a possible announcement over the next day or week.
I posted the rumor that he was unhappy and isolated after the historic thrahing by SA. Turns out it was right.
The only non-Crusader leaves. What a disaster.
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@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
Anyone who spins this as a negative is a moron. Holland was never qualified for the job in the first place.
Can’t remember too many glorious ‘strike’ plays under his watch…
What I would like to see is a new attack coach, with Hansen shifting back to defence (which he previously held for the Crusaders?) and a slimming of Ellison’s role.
There were two tries in Boks 1 this year that were excellent strike plays.
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@Tim said in All Blacks 2025:
@Landers92 said in All Blacks 2025:
Oil update.
Jason Holland to step down after the end of year tour I’m hearing.
Reliable source, as always will wear it if wrong but have no reason to believe it isn’t accurate. Very interesting development. Can expect a possible announcement over the next day or week.
I posted the rumor that he was unhappy and isolated after the historic thrahing by SA. Turns out it was right.
The only non-Crusader leaves. What a disaster.
Im not a Holland fan but its pretty funny that he as the only non Crusader is the scape goat. Last time I checked he wasn't the defence coach that had the team leak a record score. And at home.
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@pakman said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
Anyone who spins this as a negative is a moron. Holland was never qualified for the job in the first place.
Can’t remember too many glorious ‘strike’ plays under his watch…
What I would like to see is a new attack coach, with Hansen shifting back to defence (which he previously held for the Crusaders?) and a slimming of Ellison’s role.
There were two tries in Boks 1 this year that were excellent strike plays.
Does that include the Jordan one that got raved about? Can't get my head around that, looked very much like a big standard lineout Willie away with a ball back inside, lucky to hit nonexistent defence.
Very similar move got fucking slammed a few years ago when it resulted in Dagg hitting it up.
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@sparky said in All Blacks 2025:
Dave Rennie would be my choice for new backs coach.
I think Rennie would be a good option. It looks to me like the ABs need a stronger voice for their backline attack because right now they just seem incredibly unsure in both phase play and counter-attack. Rennie is a guy who could provide that. Whether he’s still a genuine candidate probably depends on his relationships within NZR, and whether things soured after the 2019-2020 selection procedure.
There are some good, young attack coaches around the world, with Sam Vesty (Northampton Saints), Noel McNamara (Union Bordeaux Bègles) and Tyler Bleyendaal (Leinster) probably being at the forefront of those. But none of them are particularly experienced and I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring in a young, inexperienced kind of guy into what feels like a very tense environment.
Another option might be Chris Boyd: he doesn’t have a lot of Test experience but he’s coached around the world and he’s an excellent attack coach, in my view. His teams typically have both an excellent attacking shape and mentality so he’d be a pretty good fit. He would also be an outside voice which could shake things up a bit, in a good way.
Or Wayne Smith could come back in, but I’m not sure he’d be interested in another fulltime gig. But he could really help with what has been a badly misfiring backline attack.
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@SouthernMann said in All Blacks 2025:
@frugby said in All Blacks 2025:
@Chris My apologies. Hansen does at least have some credentials though.
Ellison on the other hand has failed upwards.
> If it does come to it, Jamie Joseph’s massive advantage in 2028 would be his coaching group would like be highly qualified with an array of background.
Joseph's big challenge is getting the Highlanders humming. If he wants to be the AB coach he needs to coach a winning team. Two things need to happen for him to be a viable option at that point. Razor needs to fail to a point where NZR and the board has no choice but to open his position and Joseph needs to turn around a franchise that has battled for years to one that is winning and a dominant force. If he can't do that. He isn't an option.
The Highlanders can't be the wooden spooners, but equally I don't necessarily think they have to be a dominant force. He has the credentials, and crucially in Tony Brown he has a right-hand man who will trump anyone any of the other coaches can offer.
As Robertson and Foster have proved, in the modern climate the assistant coaches might be more important than the head-honcho.
Fozzie's assistants were important because one of them was Schmidt....
Foster wanted Schmidt from Day 1 but he wasn't unavailable and had to settle for someone else.
Makes you wonder if Robertson got the assistants he really wanted or had to make compromises
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@Tim said in All Blacks 2025:
From the article. Money more important than excellence. Damning.
Given the results to date, the lack of silverware and the two dramatic coaching departures, history won’t be kind to the executive and high-performance regime that ran the process to appoint Robertson.
......, following the arrival of US fund manager Silver Lake as an equity partner, there was a stronger, commercial narrative being built around the All Blacks. Various influential figures within NZR are believed to have viewed Robertson as a more charismatic and engaging figure to have at the helm of the national team.
Robertson was effectively deemed more on brand than Foster, and the sort of engaging, accessible character that could win the All Blacks a new audience and serve as a better frontman for content hub NZR+ which would form the centrepiece of the commercial strategy.
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Timing is interesting since the backline looked like it had markedly improved in the Bledisloe Cup and frankly wasn't too bad versus the Boks, save for that second half in Wellington. It was terrible in Argentina ofc.
The defence is my overriding concern. It's too porous and prevents the ABs from being able to put teams away, even if they lead from the first minute to the last.
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@Mauss said in All Blacks 2025:
I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring in a young, inexperienced kind of guy into what feels like a very tense environment.
Tense? The AB Coaching set-up comes across as bloody poisonous