All Blacks 2026
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@Chris I think its unlikely, but plausible, I mean he was approached by both Fozzie and Razor, he saw the fallout from Fozzie thought what if it doesnt work out and JJ gets the gig and im over here?
SA probably thought fark, no way will NZR sack Razor, they have never done that before, yeah sweet, chuck whatever clause you want.
If, as is more likely, there is no clause, why would SA release him? Unsurprisingly he has been as good as most expected him to be and made an impact, and probably enjoying it, so this will be a factor.
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@Frank guess it depends how much of a challenge he wants too...I mean he's got a good gig in SA, in NZ, he would starting from scratch...
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@allblackfan2 said in All Blacks 2026:
@hikastags said in All Blacks 2026:
Head Coach: Jamie Joseph
Attack Coach: Tony Brown
Defence Coach: Dave Rennie
Forwards/Set Piece: Vern Cotter
Technical/Game Management Advisor: Joe SchmidtThat's the ideal set-up IMO. Will probably need a skills & scrum coach also.
And a good mental skills coach seeing how fragile some are.
Yes, re the mental skills coaching - a balance of individual mental skills development and as a team - potentially a two person approach e.g., someone with proven expertise in strengthening individual athletes and the other from a military background e.g., Navy Seals with a couple of Hell Week camps included in prep for the RWC.
Not sure if that's shit works.
Think Camp Staaldraad.
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Almost all coaching contracts have some sort of break clause to allow for changing personal circumstances and events.
It's whether Tony Brown wants to leave the double world champions to start again with the ABs and how soon he would be able to coach again another international team given the terms of his break clause.
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Coach meetings are much better at the Mornington Tavern than over Teams
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@taniwharugby said in All Blacks 2026:
@Frank guess it depends how much of a challenge he wants too...I mean he's got a good gig in SA, in NZ, he would starting from scratch...
SA do not want Brown to head to the WC with NZ with IP from his time with SA who would want that taken away to another team.
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@booboo said in All Blacks 2026:
@allblackfan2 said in All Blacks 2026:
@hikastags said in All Blacks 2026:
Head Coach: Jamie Joseph
Attack Coach: Tony Brown
Defence Coach: Dave Rennie
Forwards/Set Piece: Vern Cotter
Technical/Game Management Advisor: Joe SchmidtThat's the ideal set-up IMO. Will probably need a skills & scrum coach also.
And a good mental skills coach seeing how fragile some are.
Yes, re the mental skills coaching - a balance of individual mental skills development and as a team - potentially a two person approach e.g., someone with proven expertise in strengthening individual athletes and the other from a military background e.g., Navy Seals with a couple of Hell Week camps included in prep for the RWC.
Not sure if that's shit works.
Think Camp Staaldraad.
Interesting, never heard of that event before though had heard about boot camps for juvenile offenders don't work. The SA camp sounded bizarre and from the summary the activities/approach weren't in line with standard military training.
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@Frank said in All Blacks 2026:
Hard to compel someone to work for you when they don't truly want to be there.
@Frank said in All Blacks 2026:
Hard to compel someone to work for you when they don't truly want to be there.
Not about making him work for them just not working for someone else through to the WC taking away their IP.
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@Nepia said in All Blacks 2026:
So a little side discussion, who thinks this should be the end of Razor's AB career and who's willing to give him another shot?
If he goes away, coaches some other teams successfully, maybe some lower tier teams, obviously outside of the Cantab bubble, then I'd be happy to see him given another shot in the future, he's still a young guy. For reference I've never wanted to see Mitchell anywhere near NZ rugby.
I don't think you get two goes. He's as cooked as Mitch, IMO. If he's going to win two RWCs, they'll be two we don't win - unless he gets a go with our women.
I said earlier that I was going to write a review of Razor's season and that I had some harsh things to say - I've left it a bit late - I didn't really expect they'd sack him and plenty that I had in mind has been done to death - and I have no contacts in the trade to tell me snippets about who said what to whom. I'll look forward to reading someone's book in due course, because I like to hear first hand accounts that are covered by libel laws.
But, three things from my own observations that might be of interest:
- Kirk's comment about trajectory absolutely resonated with me. I said earlier this season that I keep thinking we're about to turn the corner and it keeps not happening.
We win three vs France and then the first against the Argies, seems like we're building momentum and then "boom" a loss. Beat South Africa at Eden Park and then, "BOOM, Wellington". A few more somewhat scratchy wins and then "Boom, Twickenham".
Same deal in 2024.
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Superficially, 20 wins 7 losses isn't too bad in this day and age. Sadly, I think we'll be sacking a lot of coaches in future if that's unacceptable. The real problem was, in those 27 games there was never a command performance. There was never a game where we just blew someone off the park - even when we put 50+ on Wales we conceded 26.
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This one I don't know for sure, because it never became truly apparent, but it's been puzzling me.
At the very start of their tenure, Leon says, "We ripped up the play book and started fresh. We looked around at a lot of rugby, we've all had projects and come together and we feel like we'[ve got a game that suits our players and the way we want to play the game at international level".
So what exactly was this game plan?
WhatI think it probably centred around was trying to play with a speed and intensity that other teams simply couldn't cope with. I recall Brian Lochore saying after we won the first RWC that they realised that they didn't have the players to overpower other teams, so they decided they needed to do it with speed and skill.
A few of the selections make me think this was most probably the aim - and at times we'd play some very nice rugby for 15 minutes. But, then we'd fall back to looking frenetic and error ridden - balls dropped and possession turned over. Sadly we probably didn't have the players - or enough of them - for this to work.
I guess that I can't pin down this gameplan with any great confidence is an indictment in itself.
Overall - very disappointing. I had high hopes Razor could carry his Super rugby magic into international rugby. Professional sport is sometimes a cut-throat business, with few safety nets - and Razor has proven to be disposable.
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Brown could have a clause in his contract allowing him to leave without issue and SA could still dig their heels in just to make sure there’s nothing they can do about it even if they can’t. Both things can be true.
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@Chris-B Excellent post.
The big problem for me was that we never saw an 80 minutes or even a 40 minutes under Robertson that looked like a convincing All Blacks Test performance.
Who said what to whom and who hurt whose feelings aren't of interest to me. But the consistently poor performances by the All Blacks in 2024 and 2025 and the trajectory were deeply alarming.
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@Bones said in All Blacks 2026:
@Chris yeah, you'd have to think if there is a clause, it would be if he's offered the opportunity to be in the AB coaching setup, rather than specifically about JJ.
Would you?
He has turned down opportunities with others in the ABs.
Making it one head coach really limits the potnetial for him to ask for a release. Especially as the previous head coach was contracted until the end of 2027.
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@Chris yeah real interesting to see. Outside of a private group chat with a few close mates, this is the only place I'm sharing info. So It looks to me like we've got a few lurkers just copying info and then posting it elsewhere. Which is...frustrating.
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@handa457 said in All Blacks 2026:
@Chris yeah real interesting to see. Outside of a private group chat with a few close mates, this is the only place I'm sharing info. So It looks to me like we've got a few lurkers just copying info and then posting it elsewhere. Which is...frustrating.
Yeah another one very frustrating.
