Wish I was that smart. On the matter of this rule not being applied before, I will say that I have seen lineout throws reversed for taking too long and scrum feeds likewise for the same. It is rarely invoked, but I think what has distracted people is that this time it was invoked in the specific circumstances that it was; however, that doesn’t make it wrong.

I hate defending this ref because I really do not like his style, but he is a type of referee commonly encountered and I don’t think him any worse than refs like Adamson, O’Keefe and several others.

The energy really needs to be devoted to why this side is so good at losing games, because they are true masters. Where was the leadership on field reading the ref and saying to Foley (and why was he kicking, given he has one of the shorter kicks on the field) don’t mess with this bloke because anything could happen, just put it out and we will do the rest”?

The NZH has an interesting article noting that NZ, on field, worked out that they would take the ref out for the scrum by using the fastest heel possible to get out of the risk of a scrum penalty and then try to push on quickly through hands. They executed part of it and did enough to score. They are pretty flakey themselves when it comes to on fierld leadership at present but they worked it out.

I really feel for Foley and the others, they are elite athletes who play a dangerous game and give everything. But if I wanted to sum up why Oz are where they are, this game and this incident in context would be almost perfect.

Your reverence for the alleged predictability of the common law and the English and derived systems is not shared by everyone who practices within it, including me. Precedent – it’s followed when it is useful, distinguished when it isn’t and just changed when it has to be. Both sides on Roe v Wade and its recent successor think the law is being radically altered and both represented a very big reversal of precedent. Whatever one thinks of Nationwide News v Wills, the implication into our constitution of an implied protection for political free speech had no precedent and of course the very conservative benches since the early 2000’s have steadily wound this one back without much regard for the precedent. Mabo reversed over a century of awful precedent. Any barrister will tell you that you have to play to the unique characteristics of the judge on a given day – sure they probably won’t just make up a law for you, but they have huge discretion on how the law is applied, when it is applied and where it is applied. Reynal didn’t make up a law, he used one that is in the book and he had warned Foley and Australia, repeatedly.

I don’t know that a lot of lawyers would consider the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and its related legislation, regulations and private rulings to be especially good exemplars of “slender canons” or a ‘yeoman’s common sense’ -here is Wikipedia putting a fairly uncontroversial view “The reason for rewriting the act is that amendments over the years have made it thousands of pages long, and very complex. Amendments have also created subsection upon subsection, for example 221YHAAC(2)(e)(iii)(A).” That looks a bit like what you think is uniquely French; “the French law is mammoth and tries to anticipate every occurrence and assign an outcome”. Sometimes what we see as somehow especially of the ‘other’ is actually no different to looking at ourselves in the mirror.

I won’t say that being French played no role in the way the game was adjudicated, but I don’t think it played the role you (perhaps half jokingly) ascribe. He had warned Foley through the game about delaying kicks and he warned him on this occasion and then he pulled the trigger. Haven’t you seen that before?

Do you think referee Adamson from Scotland in his controversial ruling on the deliberate knockdown in the Oz v Wales game last year was somehow deeply influenced by Presbyterianism, or some quirk of Scottish culture, or is he simply another officious ref who lets some things go and jumps on others?

When Andre Watson said to George Gregan in a Super Rugby game ‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again’ and then proceeded to penalise Gregan and his side out of the match, should one read that as being a uniquely South African response – after all Gregan had chirped and chipped at referees (including Watson) like this for years. Was this the influence of the Dutch Reform Church, or South Africa’s troubled past, or was it mostly just a referee who had had a gutful and did what the laws said he was entitled to do?

When Gregan was occasionally called for not feeding the scrum straight were those referees doing something that could really best be understood by their funny foreign ways and quaint legal systems? Or were they just at the limit of their patience?

I really enjoy and respect your work and your knowledge of the game and what you do with others to make this website happen, but I am really uncomfortable with this article and what, to me at least, reads like a cheap shot based on stereotypes, even when it is part in jest – there’s enough xenophobia and nasty prejudice just under the surface without scratching it like this. I don’t like Reynal’s refereeing style much, but I don’t see it as something coming ‘out of the terroir’. He is an officious ref of the kind that rugby assessors love because in the course of a game he ticks off lots of boxes for Laws applied, he arguably gets most of them right in terms of the Laws themselves and he polices the areas that they are asked to police. Hence he, Adamson, O’Keefe and others make carrying the ball into contact a very risky thing indeed, because they allow the defending side a lot of leeway compared to the hair trigger approach to carrier immediate release, for example.

If you push the ref to the limit sometimes you will push too far. The ref had warned Foley numerous times. Foley is a fine player and probably a decent man, but he stuffed that one up. However, I give credit to the team, who I think could well have managed to lose the game from there even if Reynal had given him another 5-10 seconds. After all, they had just immediately turned over a restart after fluffing their exit to put themselves under pressure and isn’t that an old story as well?

Other times Foley might have got away with ignoring the ref. That’s rugby. We’d all love more consistency but that’s a call that is as old as the game itself and even in simpler games like football or League they constantly cry out for consistency and so on. Maybe more time should be spent on analysing the failures and ongoing issues that unfortunately make Australian rugby so mediocre than on moaning about refs.

And it doesn’t need anymore ‘guests’ like this.

Thanks for the article. The impression I have is that many of the comments miss what I understand to be the central point of your article, which is that this is about attitudes that shape perception and behaviour and actions. Apparently, this is beyond some readers.

I note we have the usual stuff along the lines of ‘you get paid what you are worth’ and ‘when women’s sport generates dollars they will be paid accordingly’. It’s a version of ‘I’m alright Jack’ and ‘lifters and leaners’ and about as well thought through (notice how so many of the people who espouse these comments and are hostile to ‘big government’ seem to spend so much of their time on the public purse? Joe Hockey, Alexander [very aptly named] Downer etc.).

The comments along the lines of ‘amateur product, amateur pay’ assume a lot. Who is assessing the quality and, more importantly, the commerciality of the product? If the attitude/mentality at the outset is dismissive, they will probably see what they want to see. If the big sponsors are mostly run by one gender (and they are) and the dominant attitude is belittling/dismissive (and there is evidence that it is) then they will also see what they expect to see and they will prioritise their sponsorships accordingly. Assuming some kind of neutral, rational market is a big assumption. The arguments about whether a given male player is worth $1.2 M etc. indicates that there are contests about how value is being assessed. Yet that very post asserts that the people who can’t get male wages right are somehow getting female wages right. I see a problem of logic in that.

Do those making ‘amateur product’ type comments know what women’s rugby actually brings in, or what its financial potential is – or are they just making the types of assumptions based on the types of attitudes that the article is saying are at the heart of the issue?

I do think one point that was well made was to ask the question of female led businesses what are they doing? But surely that question is just as pertinent for male led and dominated ones, especially as big business remains very much a male dominated world.

There is also an intriguing double standard behind comments of the ‘you get what you are worth’ type. They tend to be supportive of moves to spend money promoting the men’s game, paying men big dollars who have success rates in the 40% area, spending money on ‘grass roots rugby’ – and if you want to talk amateur rugby gets amateur money then that is an odd one- paying big dollars to keep players in Oz or to bring them back etc. Maybe women’s rugby deserves a similar attitude when it comes to supporting its development.

You can support equality of opportunity whilst remaining supportive of rewarding achievement, which will often be unequal. I don’t read the article as calling for equal pay as such, but for equality in opportunity. What is happening in rugby here is that there is not equality of opportunity and a lot of the comments reflect exactly what the article speaks about when it comes to bias and being unreflective on one’s own attitudes.

Nic, I appreciate you taking the time to reply, but given I wrote that ” a Brumbies based style (but not a cookie-cutter version)” the whole premise of your reply seems based on misreading what I wrote, given you start off with “I don’t really see the Brums plan ever being taken on en bloc”. I would appreciate a reply a whole lot more if it actually dealt with what I said and not a version that is based on you either rushing through and misreading, or else just deciding to create an artificial version of what I wrote so you could rebut the straw man you created.

As to making the game an attractive spectacle, I would say that a side that is losing more games than it wins is making the game a receptacle and not a spectacle; or it is making the side a spectacle alright but probably not the kind of spectacle that everyone had in mind.

People like winning sides (within reason – crowds declined during Larkham’s tenure at the Brumbies when they became a caricature of themselves) and playing a more narrow game doesn’t equal unattractive, unless you think that there is only one way to play. Let’s face it, the MacQueen Wallabies played pretty predictable rugby and most of their wins against the stronger unions were based off 2-3 tries for a game – hardly razzle dazzle.

And as for Quade and Kerevi, isn’t part of the point that they don’t play many games and there don’t seem to be many alternatives and the selected players in key positions lack their skill sets/impact, meaning you have a mismatch between the coach’s preferred style and the capacities of the players? Which brings us back to the point you might usefully have addressed. Or could you have? Perhaps that is why, as with other things I have written that you clearly don’t like, what you seem to do is to build a straw man and work from there. If that is so, it is pretty disappointing, given our relative qualifications and resources in relation to analysing the game. Regardless, I still value your articles, whatever I might think about what you do when you respond to my comments.

I am not sure whether you recall the way Kerr-Barlow and Cruden played with Rennie in the Waikato based franchise’s years of triumph (2012-13) but there is the key for seeing what Rennie is looking for. The issue is not really with Lolesio as such, but with the style of player he is and the style of player Rennie needs to implement his plans. Who in Oz, 0ther than two blokes in the end stages of their careers can play in a similar style to Kerr-Barlow and Cruden? They don’t have to be carbon copies but they have to have similar skill sets and instincts?

I don’t think that there has ever been the boldness of selection to match the boldness of the style Rennie wants. Additionally, some selections didn’t come off at 9 and they have ended up with a 9 who is better suited to a different style but who has the all round skills and experience to manage. Unimaginative, reactive and conservative selection has been a strange hallmark in combination with an attempt at an adventurous style.

I am sceptical that the players in depth ever existed in Australia to do what Rennie wanted and I also doubt whether it would be a winning style at this level, in combination with the refereeing interps (especially at breakdown) we have seen since about early 2019. Rennie might have made it stick with the All Blacks.

There are lots of ways to play rugby, Rennie is a fine coach (the difficulty of winning one, let alone successive Super titles can’t be underestimated) and selection is never as clear cut as fans tend to think, but the playing style has to be compatible with the capacities and the instincts of the available players and there has to be an eye on refereeing trends at the level at which one is playing. Rennie has a surfeit of assistant coaches and players with a radically different style and skills and instincts to his and he is swimming against the stream with refereeing at this level.

For what it is worth, a Brumbies based style (but not a cookie-cutter version) would suit the limited skills and vision of the available player pool and be more sympatico with the way the game is ticking at present. But that would need a different coach, or for Rennie to engage in radical surgery on his vision. Bob Dwyer made significant changes to his preferred style in his ‘second coming’ from 1988-1995 to adopt a more kick and set-piece based approach that gelled with the times and players and Macqueen did likewise after moving from Brumbies to Oz. People forget that his first few games in the crisis of 1997 saw complaints from the non-Brumbies contingent that he was trying to implement the same plans and he modified, as he had a very significant QLD contingent in particular. In both these cases, the sides retained a strong ball in hand ethic but they played a lot of tight stuff first and in Macqueen’s case the backs played a lot of close stuff, not the more cavalier stuff people sometimes think of. It was NZ who were trying to play expansive, explosive rugby. In the case of both coaches mentioned they had excellent players who didn’t really fit the requirements (consider the adventurous Knox v the tighter style of Lynagh) and in some cases the players adapted a bit and the coach adapted a bit and in others the player and coach just didn’t fit. Right now, Lolesio just doesn’t fit. With a different approach he would be perfect. Right now Oz has the worst of all worlds and the win/loss ratio and the appearance of players having low confidence is the exemplar. What a pity. Waste all round.

And another thing, what on earth has you logging onto an Oz rugby website when you are where the centre of gravity is?

Good points and bugger re DD!

I must admit it just feels like more putting off the evil day.

Is there much point Razor hanging about doing more of the same?

Thanks Jacko. It is a funny thing that when you start looking into whether there are things like having been an All Black, or Super trophies etc. you find there just are not any real pointers there.

I think I still have some trauma from Wayne Smith and then John Mitchell. Mitchell was probably a total c^*t because even his backers tend to admit he is a bit of a rough diamond (at best) but he got results with the same side that hadn’t and I just felt the then obsession with firing people who had one loss in a knockout tournament was really awful and counter productive and with Wayne Smith the pain and waste were just about too much to bear.

I felt something similar with McKenzie over here and although i felt Deans had run his course I hated the weird conspiracy stuff and the vitriol.

And then what looked very similar wasn’t when it was Ireland in the next game and NZ lost a really key player. I am still really troubled by that one. Like COVID hitting a couple of days out from test 1, it is hard to really plan for that stuff. Ireland were good enough and I subscribe to the ‘you have to play the ref out of the game’ idea generally, but there were some pretty stiff breaks.

Jacko would your pref be Razor or someone else? I don’t think this afternoon’s decision is as final as it might seem on paper. I think it is pretty clear that Foster will have every failing nailed to him and every success attributed elsewhere and I think the side will continue to see saw – they should do fine v Argentina and the rudderless rabble that is Oz, but the northern tour might get tricky again.

I just think the reality is that public and the media seem very focused on Razor and so anyone else is going to be pushing s*^% up hill and will be competing against a perfect coach as a shadow. Hard to win that one. Sometimes I think you just to have to roll with it. In court sometimes it is the same – the court has a position and nothing will change it and you just have to cut losses and move on. I think Razor will probably do fine and once they have their man, I suspect he will get a bit more slack than others – for a while….

I have no problem with people not liking Mitchell and he seems to be a genius at p’ing people off but his record was pretty good wasn’t it? 2002 takes over and things are not in good shape, demoralised side, coach has just fallen on his sword and 2003 he has the Bled back and a record 50 points on what was still a very strong Wobblies (before they became that). Had it not been for some superb defence in the opening minutes of that semi v Oz my feeling every time I have watched is that Oz would have been buried again. They were then good enough to put on a tremendous performance and I don’t think there was any shame in losing that match, nor the match v England in NZ.

I have no issue with criticism of Mitchell and Deans but I’d need to see more to be able to agree with one of worst ever and I’d need to know criteria. Selections are almost always controversial – Mains copped plenty up until 1995 and Henry in 2007, for example.

I suspect it is merely prolonging the inevitable. The expanded role for Schmidt says something to me. I suspect the decision makers are badly divided and can’t reach a resolution.

No, I think I know where you are coming from (pardon the pun?). A top level player of the relevant game has perspectives that need to be heard. I am ok with a top level sportsplayer of a different gender and from a different game being on board, because I think there are some things that translate across those things but it is about having a balance. Personally I would also have a current player involved as one voice and I know that raises player power hackles but I believe that no-one really knows how to run something like the people actually doing the grunt work. They shouldn’t have all the say but for balance I think they should be involved. With a name like mine, how could I be anything but one for the working man?

Thanks for the kind words and I think being a coach is a horrible job at any level, having done it at a low level. I can also remember QLD players pulling out on Bob Dwyer in the early 1980’s (and maybe he did do a bit to piss them off but still…), the end of the (to me) loathsome Allan Jones era (but the man could coach), the often brutal Grizz v Hart, Mains v Hart, stuff pre-or just into professionalism. It is just always a crappy job and there is often so much stuff over which you have no control, or not as much control as people think.

That’s why whilst I think Rennie is not doing what I’d like here i just won’t bag the bloke, although I will happily point out where I differ and why. The bloke is still a quality coach and there is so much we don’t know about who is carrying niggling injuries, selection politics, training facilities etc. etc.

I was told about an international head coach of a tier one nation who was having to be involved in the organisation of airplane travel! Now there are only so many hours in the day and that sort of guff has to be a distraction. Yet there was never going to be anything written about that, so who would know? It wasn’t the only thing they were dealing with that just boggled the mind.

I guess we have to agree to disagree, but that happens in life. We probably don’t disagree on the solution. I like the name BTW – I think we may have chatted before on that one. Hope you are having some Easy Living and that there is a Devil’s Daughter to look after you!

Absolutely. I love scrum, maul and ruck and lineout. I love a fly-half who gives a sense that they are running the show and are playing to an observable plan. I support Waikato for reasons of family but the rugby I really like is Canterbury. Over here it used to be Qld in the 1980s and 90’s and then the Brumbies from 1996. Having said that, I loved watching a guy like Spencer, even though I would have picked Mehrts every time. I can appreciate other ways.

My point of departure from 10 man rugby is that backline tries are fun to watch and tries plus penalties/drop-goals really hurt. At the level of provincial finals and test rugby, it is very, very hard to win through tries alone. However, I would rather watch England or France over Australia at the moment if I had to choose and depending on how NZ play I find NZ pretty hard work sometimes – I understand the frustrations, I really do.

Comrade, I always start the day by opening up the NZ Herald sealed section (the paid up rugby stuff), StuffNZ, the Roar and Rugby Pass. Reason – you have got him right. He can be irritating but he is worth reading. I don’t agree with his process in that article but I agree with the conclusion.

For me one of the things is that every success Foster has had has been too often attributed by his opponents to others (commonly his AC’s) but every failure is squarely sheeted home to him. It is another piece of intellectual laziness.

The issue for me is that you have to start by asking what is the best playing approach for NZ given the combination of the players available, the laws as they are being ref’d and the opponents they face. If you come to the Foster/Hansen view then Foster is probably the guy to continue. If you take a different view then Foster is not the guy.

My view is that you have to be able to play position, possession, penalty, points sometimes. That is the iron law of rugby. You have to be able to fight it up the middle for at least periods of the game. From there, personally, I like it if you can then use creativity to drive the sword in via 7 pointers. I think NZ do have the players to do this and I think test 1 v Ireland and test 2 v SA showed that to varying degrees. I agree with the view that the pool is thin in some areas but I am not so pessimistic as to adopt the Hansen/Foster view and I also think that the dazzling skills and smarts are not so present as they were a few years ago, which raises a question about whether the speedy movement away from contact can actually work.

One thing I do know is that Foster is qualified to do the job, his record is not just that of a competent AC (although that might still be where he works best) and I can support a different person and a different style but still have plenty of respect for the bloke and for a different view. I feel exactly the same about Dave Rennie, by the way. And I desperately hope Eddie Jones stays somewhere apart from Oz (or NZ), ditto Cheika, but they both have some outstanding qualities as coaches.

I think the momentum for Robertson makes it really risky to go elsewhere, because anyone else, even Joseph/Brown, Schmidt etc. would be under huge pressure to get immediate results. I would stay away if I was advising someone other than Robertson.

I agree that there are potential unknowns with Razor but when I raise it in other places not many can accept that his fantastic record at province doesn’t automatically mean the same in what is a very different role.

I was hoping Nic Bishop might outline the differences between province and national as he has that background, albeit as an analyst but still a part of the set up. It blew my mind when someone told me what was involved for the national head coach (it wasn’t NZ but it was a first tier national side and they were a part of that set up having moved up from provincial). I wasn’t completely surprised at one level – the further up you go the bigger the organisation you are leading etc. but it was some of the detail that made me realise that what the average fan thinks is involved is a long way from reality.

I would love to see more explicit progressions (pathways if one will) outlined for coaches with ambitions for the top job, because experience of different rugby cultures and roles strikes me as being very useful and something Henry and Hansen had was all of that. The scrutiny and expectations for the All Blacks is another thing again but they had seen a good part of that at Wales. To me there has been limited value in having Robertson doing the same thing (albeit extremely well) at the Crusaders since 2019.

Agree re McDonald/Holland v Brown.

I suspect that Foster is a touch tougher than people give credit for. You don’t get to the higher levels of any organisation without burying a few bodies. Some put the knife in with a smile, some with a snarl, but they all carry a knife. My own view is that it is better to be feared than loved, but I am not sure that is the issue here so much as it may be about playing philosophy and analysis of the best way forward for NZ with the players they have.

I have seen so many different types of people do well in leadership – the key things I have noticed is not how they appear, or even what their level of past achievement has been but whether they convey a clarity of purpose, a high degree of resolve and an ability to convey the promise of ruthlessness if crossed (talk softly and carry a big stick). The players response and his record make me think that Foster has these things. The problems, I think, are to do with his take on the way forward for NZ rugby, the context (a transitional period and relative shallowness in some key positions) and division about him in the administration; and then like in the Grizz and Mains years, there is another candidate with an outstanding record in the wings.

Who’d want to be a coach? I would pay someone to do it so I wouldn’t have to.

I suspect that Ted had it right when he said that the stuff up was, as you say, in the lead up, where there was a failure to secure the best possible field. It might be telling that Ted’s preference seems to have been for neither Robertson or Foster, or others but for Dave Rennie. I suspect that the board was horribly divided over the way forward, with Hansen’s views carrying weight with some and not so much with others. There may have been some complacency, thinking that people like Rennie would keep their careers on hold until they could apply for the All Blacks’ role. I think that may explain handing off to a panel, which I suspect then had to deal with what is said to have been a pretty terrible performance from Robertson (and I don’t have a concluded view on whether that was so) and was divided as a result between Foster and Robertson, hence Foster getting a destabilising 2 year appointment. That is hardly what I would expect where it was all a done deal.

I understand the view taken by Hansen and others (if that was the view) but I don’t think the cupboard is so bare (or was so bare) that I would have gone down their path. I see rugby as a sport where there are fundamental structures that always reassert themselves and that means you have to at least be competitive in the grind amongst other things. I suspect we see the game from a similar stand point.

My own view is that regardless of whether Foster is up to the job or not, the costs of retaining him are way out of proportion to the benefits of replacing him. I think Robertson is likely to bring things more to where I like them. I just hate the rubbish thrown about as much as I would if it was thrown about at Robertson, or anyone else. I felt the same when Dingo Deans was being hounded here (pardon the pun) and even with the (for me) loathsome Cheika.

Thanks for the article I enjoyed it, but you have lost me with the characterisation of Foster. Make no mistake, he wouldn’t be my first choice for All Black head coach and he wasn’t in 2019. However, you commit some pretty serious errors, in my view, in your characterisation of Foster. First, you provide no criteria for assessing what makes a coach in your top 20 NZ coaches and provide no evidence to support your assertions. That makes it a discussion devoid of any substance. Second, you create a straw man in characterising Foster and that is a lazy approach. Third, you don’t do anything to look at what makes a successful head coach at All Black level.

A problem with characterising Foster as not even in the top 2o NZ coaches is that the All Black backline ran pretty well, I thought, in 2012 -2019 when he was the assistant coach with responsibility for the backs; or is that going to be airbrushed out now? Why would people like Graeme Henry and Steve Hanson risk tarnishing their reputations by recommending a bloke in 2019 that was so hopeless and why would Hanson have stuck with him over those years? Is the reason that present players have spoken out in support of him just loyalty? How does that explain past players who have done the same and who weren’t from the Chiefs franchise or Waikato? You say it is loyalty being repaid but Julian Savea was basically let go and he has come out in support of Foster, so might it not be that the guy actually isn’t a total flop?

You don’t really look at what makes a good coach, or a successful coach, or a good provincial head coach v a good international level one, or a good assistant coach v a good head coach is complex. You name Gatland as a better coach, but his record in Super Rugby is a 28% win ratio v Foster at a touch over 50% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiefs_(rugby_union). Tony Brown in his second coming at the franchise based in Otago was 37.5% and Jamie Joseph is 53% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlanders_(rugby_union). Now I can make good arguments about other things in favour of Gatland et al, like JJ and Brown having the 2015 Super trophy v a single losing final for Foster in 2009, or Gatland being a successful Lions coach in 2013 and 2017 but what are your criteria? You never say.

Is taking a relatively weak playing group to a final of Super Rugby a better achievement than taking a very strong group to a winning final?

Do we consider Foster’s s 100% winning seasons with the NZ U23’s as head coach? He has a better record there than Razor at 93%, but I could defend Razor’s record by pointing out that his side only lost 1 game. Yet if you wanted to pick holes, Razor took a winning side in 2015 and then missed out on the finals of the following U20 World Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_World_Rugby_Under_20_Championship; yet that was off 1 loss and a 1 point win over Wales seeing his side miss out on points for and against – had they scored a few more v Wales they may well have gone on to win the comp. Chris Boyd who has a better Super Rugby record (76% win rate) than Foster has an inferior record with the junior All Blacks than Foster. So is he a worse coach than Foster? Or was Foster just lucky?

Grame Henry had a very average record at times in his career – have a look at his last season with Wales and his losing leadership of the 2001 Lions. The 2007 RWC wasn’t exactly a triumph either. How was the side travelling in 2009 after losing two to the Boks? Yet in 2009 he was dealing with a very fine SA side. Does that not count?

if Smith is in your top 10, what is the criteria? Wayne Smith is an outstanding rugby brain and a gifted coach, but if you look at his All Black head coach record it was 2 seasons, 50% in the Tri Nations, clean swept by Oz in 2001, including their first win at the House of Pain and so on. Yet the same person had two Super 12 trophies as a head coach.

You also characterise Foster as ‘a nice guy’ – if you know anything about getting to the top in any field, the first thing is that you do it by being good at putting the knife in. Some people just smile whilst they do it. I doubt very much that he is a nice guy. He is a professional driven to succeed. Ask his two sacked assistant coaches if Foster is an ethical and nice guy for staying in his job whilst they lost theirs – they were his picks, remember.

The personality assessment is also very thin on substance. In my profession, law, winners come in all forms, from pit bull types to softly spoken and apparently gentle (nice) types. When I took a break and was teaching I saw the same thing.

My take is that like Wayne Smith, Foster has taken over at a time of transition where NZ are relatively weak in several key playing positions and where key rivals are unusually strong. Like Wayne Smith, I suspect that his strengths may be at the assistant coach level, but both had success as head coaches. If they came into their head coach roles in a different context, maybe it would be a different story. Ask Nic Bishop what he thinks about his mate Stu Lancaster – a pretty disastrous reign as England head coach, but in my view a very astute coach. His time wasn’t helped by the whole Sam Burgess saga, a situation over which he had little control, as I understand it.

Like you, I am frustrated by a lot of things at present – selections, tactics being two, but you don’t actually have to make a straw man out of Foster to make a case for change. He can actually be a highly competent coach but not be the right man at the right time. He can be a legitimate coach with a legitimate take on how to try to navigate NZ through a difficult period even where you (and I) might disagree. It doesn’t have to be a binary argument – Foster = bad, Razor =God.

Selections are often as much about the style the coach wants to play (and some politics), as they are about ‘quality’. The style Rennie wants to play is not one that plays to the strengths of either Nic White or Lolesio. The coach is entitled to have the players who can best play the way he wants. I don’t think JOC is a lot closer to Rennie’s style but he is closer. What is disappointing to me about this regime to date is that they have had a very limited willingness to go with younger players, even though some of them probably come much closer to being able to deliver the coach’s style.

I have said since 2020 that I am not convinced that the DR way is best suited to the Laws as presently being interpreted, or to the capacities of Australian players. However, I would just love a bit more boldness in selection so that he had the best chance to succeed.

JOC is a year younger than QC. They are both tremendous players but this is not a good game for players in their mid 30’s. They are likely to miss as much rugby as they play, at best. Selecting them just builds in more instability and it also stifles development. The way some other players (Lolesio and Wilson spring to mind) have been treated does not strike me as best selectorial practice. In and then out, being selected against NZ then not for other games, being selected for England and then not – it is reminiscent of the brilliant Australian selections around captaincy in cricket in the 1979-1984 period.

I hope JOC has a game that brings the air freshener back after he stunk up the room, but would it not be better to be having a look at someone like Donaldson or Edmed, who offer the adventure of youth and play a style closer to the DR one? For them, a year of experience at this level would be very beneficial – for QC and JOC it is another load of miles on a badly worn engine.

If the OZ side played the style I think closest to their capacities, I would back White and Lolesio. Lolesio is a much better player than he is given credit for (look at his passing to either side, watch his distribution choices at the Brumbies), he runs when he should and he is a very solid defensive player. He has a very calm temperament and he tends to adapt well in game in the Brumbies. That might be because it is a step down but it might be because they play a style to which he is suited, unlike Oz.

At any rate here’s hoping for an entertaining game, although the ref for this one doesn’t inspire much hope of a big change from Adamson wondering about looking for a chance to blow a penalty, whether it is needed or not. Good refs for a game where you don’t spend too much time holding the ball, especially in range of your goal.

Not surprising to see training concussions if you have played rugby. Not hard to pick up a concussion during a contact session at all. Not desirable, quite frustrating but not that surprising.

Re some posts by others – there may be an issue around strength and conditioning re the injury toll but also keep in mind that the bodies are bigger, faster and the collisions accordingly more dangerous every season. England had a lot of injured players coming into their tour, NZ have had issues. It is basically a part of the game now.

Pretty much sums up my view, as well. I think we can disagree with a coaching decision etc. or whether a player is doing the job well enough without putting the boot in. There is a place for strong but respectful disagreement/commentary. I also saw an earlier comment of yours and thread off it re the impact of press and fan expectations, abuse etc. and agree with your general point, noting several former international players have said that whilst they weren’t going to talk about it at the time, the barbs did wound, not just sting.

I understand the frustration and the passion but at the end of the day, for fans/supporters this is actually just a game; I absolutely love it and can’t easily imagine a life without rugby but even so, most of my time is spent doing other things. We can well do with keeping some perspective.