All Blacks 2026
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@canefan said in All Blacks 2026:
@kev said in All Blacks 2026:
@Chris-B said in All Blacks 2026:
@jimmyb said in All Blacks 2026:
Fairly biting remakes from Smith. Not saying I agree it was a bad decision, but interesting nonetheless
That is interesting, because Smith was - I think - still in his performance coach role with the ABs so surely someone who was interviewed and presumably had supportive things to say.
"Disaffected players speak behind your back and get to rubbish you, incognito, during end-of-campaign reviews," he said.
I think that is an issue. There is the power dynamic of not wanting to ruin your selection chances by criticising a coach directly. But context can help you respond to criticism if you’re the coach.
Hard to know what the future holds. I bet the Warriors wish they had never let Ivan Cleary go - a shocking decision. Still based on performance and trends this seems like the right call.
Wonder how long they will take to appoint the new coach?
I thought Cleary left because the Wahs wouldn't give him a contract term that he asked for?
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@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2026:
@kev said in All Blacks 2026:
I bet the Warriors wish they had never let Ivan Cleary go - a shocking decision. Still based on performance and trends this seems like the right call.
Cleary situation seemed more like Foster where it was announced earlier in the year he was leaving and ended up making the final in his last year.
Which might be the point. Sometimes success is just around the corner ….not saying that was the case with Razor as there wasn’t a game where you could say we played well.
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@kev said in All Blacks 2026:
@KiwiMurph said in All Blacks 2026:
@kev said in All Blacks 2026:
I bet the Warriors wish they had never let Ivan Cleary go - a shocking decision. Still based on performance and trends this seems like the right call.
Cleary situation seemed more like Foster where it was announced earlier in the year he was leaving and ended up making the final in his last year.
Which might be the point. Sometimes success is just around the corner ….not saying that was the case with Razor as there wasn’t a game where you could say we played well.
In his second year Cleary took the Warriors to 4th on the regular season ladder. I just dont see the parallels
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@lak said in All Blacks 2026:
@Bones
Cast your minds back to the Hurricane times, came in, set up the culture, fecked off (fired), that's all we need, then JJ and TB can come in and work their magicComedy gold, he came in and got rid of or chased away half the big names in the team, killed off a portion of the fanbase, and then settled in for three years of the same mediocrity.
@Chris-B Is this fellow your boy?
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@hikastags said in All Blacks 2026:
No thank you on Wayne Smith coming back. He was helping Razor during the SA games.
HanseSn & Fozzie's team in Japan is crap (they almost faced relegation to D2).
All these guys coaching is outdated IMO.
Wayne Smith was in camp for 4 tests under Razor (33-10 Wobs 2024, 42-10 Arg 2nd test 2024, 43-16 (biggest win over France in June 2025) and the 1st SA test 24-17, he wasn't in camp during the Wellington capitulation test...
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Very sad we don't get someone like Tony Brown. Nick Evans, O'Gara? Who are now the likely assistant coach candidates?
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@nostrildamus said in All Blacks 2026:
Very sad we don't get someone like Tony Brown.
Let's see what happens with Brown.
I'm sceptical that 48 hours after the coaching change is announced that there's a definitive answer on Brown.
Whilst there was plenty of rumours in this thread that were on the money this week, there was also plenty that weren't.
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@Duluth said in All Blacks 2026:
@Frank said in All Blacks 2026:
Tana can be the cultural connector or whatever that is, fine, but I don't want him anywhere near strategy or the other details of coaching. He SUCKED at the Blues.
Maybe a defence coach. I think there’s better options than him though
I rate your opinion highly. Who would you have as contenders?
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David Kirk when asked if it was too risky making a change this late in the cycle replied with " no, we felt it was too risky not to make a change now"
A brave move by the board and the right move.
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@Jimmy-Jimmy said in All Blacks 2026:
David Kirk when asked if it was too risky making a change this late in the cycle replied with " no, we felt it was too risky not to make a change now"
A brave move by the board and the right move.
He's right though. We might still have a tough 2026, but it sounded toxic and I think it would have been worse if things stayed the same.
Something had to give.
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We have been pretty much treading water since around 2017 and we all had high hopes that change was coming from 2024.
What has happened though, in my view, is that we have gone backwards and seen things that I thought I would never see.
Most disturbing to me is the acceptance of mediocrity that so many scribes, punters, players and coaches have tried to ram down our throats.
This is why what David Kirk said on Thursday excites me.
He wants to bring Aura back, baby. -
So if we assume JJ applies and that Brown is unavailable, this would now be the 3rd coaching team in a row that wanted Brown, but he didnt want to be part of the 1st 2 and is now unavailable...
Would also mean, it is the 3rd consecutive coaching team that supposedly won't be the '1st choice'
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@antipodean said in All Blacks 2026:
@Bovidae said in All Blacks 2026:
I've never warmed to Robertson's personality and always found it cringe-worthy when listening to him speak. Obviously there are reasons for that, some known, others perhaps not, but I wasn't surprised when reading what a sports journalist had to say about his press conferences:
"You can't really make sense of what he is saying. If that's what he is like to the media, what is he like behind closed doors?"
Agreed - a point I've made before. Add to Razor's incoherent ramblings the manglement of Scott Hansen and it's no wonder our teams looked utterly confused in the second half.
The comments about his communication style - which I also found incomprehensible - keeps bringing me back to the big head scratcher of how this worked at the Crusaders?
I can see how and agree that it was a failure in the AB environment - but is the Crusaders environment that different?
I am honestly really confused how things could have gone so well at the Crusaders and that none of the issues identified in the review - especially around communication - manifested themselves over the course of 7 years in that environment.
