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Sir John's got the Blues, but does he deserve to keep them?

Roar Guru
11th May, 2015
31

Over the past three seasons there has been a lot of commentary from Sir John Kirwan about improvements at the Blues within their high-performance structures, work ethic, selection and recruitment policies at lower age levels, and team culture.

As an outsider looking in, we can’t see all the work going on behind the scenes, and some of these improvements only directly affect development pathways to the Blues’ squad.

We can only judge these stated improvements upon the team’s performances and results which isn’t particularly flattering for the Blues.

Professional sport is a business where only one metric matters – wins.

In Kirwan’s first two years, he received coaching support and mentoring from two members of the World Cup-winning coaching team, Graham Henry and Mick Byrne. The result was two 10th-place finishes that included two away victories – one in his first year and one in his second.

This year Sir John was forced to take on the backs coaching role as he couldn’t recruit one for this season, and the additional workload and pressure isn’t helping, with the team currently sitting 13th on the ladder with no victories away from Eden Park this year and four home matches left to play.

The irony is that Sir John was part of an Auckland rugby renaissance during the 1980s that was associated with backline flair and strikepower, and now coaches a backline struggling to manipulate defences and score tries.

Newly appointed coaches generally plan a three-year strategy to deliver improvements and results. There have been recent examples of coaches that have overachieved and delivered improvements and results ahead of expectations – Ewen McKenzie, Dave Rennie, Jake White, Michael Cheika and Chris Boyd.

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However fans and the board are more accepting and forgiving in their opinions of a team’s performance if progress is visible week to week and on an upward tangent.

Kirwan is now asking for a leap of faith from the Blues board and long-suffering supporters to be granted an extension of at least one more year. He’s outlined a bold plan to poach Crusaders assistant coach Tabai Matson to join his team next year and be groomed to succeed for the 2017 season.

Apparently following an extensive review conducted by the Blues, he has support from the playing group who believe that if the right coaching team is put in place with Kirwan, he has the vision, passion and respect to lead them out of the doldrums.

On the surface this endorsement strengthens his case, however it does lead to a couple of questions.

Does this suggest the players didn’t believe in the previous coaching team of Henry and Byrne? Does this suggest Kirwan couldn’t work as well as he wanted and needed to with Henry and Byrne? Why wasn’t this raised by the players last year?

Are self-serving interests from the players a factor? A new coach will have their own ideas of how they want the team to play and what kind of players they need to execute their game-plan. Not all of the current squad would survive the cut under a new coach.

What is hard to believe are reports in the media that the Blues board are expected to grant Kirwan an extension and rubber stamp his plan.

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There is also an attempt to link Kirwan’s tenure at the Blues to the situation the Highlanders were in at the end of the 2013 season, which was a huge disappointment after high expectations following 2012 and their off-season recruitment.

After an awful campaign, player feedback about head coach Jamie Joseph was non-ambiguous: he possessed a number of positive qualities but could only be retained if he agreed to make significant and wholesale changes.

The key difference though, is that Joseph achieved better-than-expected results in his first year and has followed them up in his third and current year as coach.

Former Blues coach Pat Lam must be watching these developments from afar with mixed emotions. He’s as proud a Blues man as Kirwan and wants nothing more than success for his former team, but he never received the same level of support from the board as his successor, was a victim of racial vilification from ignorant bigots, and in 2011 led the Blues to their sole finals appearance since their last title win in 2003.

I would love nothing more than to see the Blues recapture their former glory. They have the biggest rugby nursery in New Zealand, are the largest Polynesian city in the world, and export more players to New Zealand teams than any other region.

From all accounts, Kirwan is admired, respected and well liked. But there is clearly something not clicking between himself and the players. That is a problem that won’t be solved by introducing different voices next year, he is the boss and ultimately responsible and accountable.

If Kirwan is retained as coach, some simple boxes need to be ticked for next season:
• Win games away from Eden Park
• Harness the flair and score more tries
• Improve talent identification and recruitment across the entire catchment region
• Show greater patience with player development particularly in key positions 7, 9 and 10

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