All Blacks coach Ian Foster isn’t shying away from the unimpressed chatter coming from fans in New Zealand after his side’s disappointing finish to 2021, saying he is “always accountable” for the team’s results.
Heat has been piled on Foster this week after the All Blacks’ 40-25 loss to France in Paris, a week after the side had already suffered a significant defeat at the hands of Ireland.
Foster told Sky on Monday evening he’ll deal with “noise” as it comes.
“I’ve got a job to do,” Foster said. ”I’m very passionate about what I do with this group.
“I’ve got a lot of belief in what we’ve achieved this year. I'm not going to be swayed off task by a couple of performances at the end of the year, where we've won 80 per cent of our tests and lost the last two.
“They’re amazingly good lessons for us. We don’t want to receive those lessons, but it's my job to make sure we decipher that, pull it apart and figure out how we learn from that, and figure out how we can learn from it to move forward.”
The All Blacks’ inability to deal with rushing defences and physical sides in recent weeks has led critics to question Foster’s game plans and execution, but the All Blacks coach said they will learn and move forward from the “couple of smacks” they were served in the last two weeks.
“You've got to go through some of these lessons sometimes as an All Black team,” he said. “It’s not like this is a fully established [team] with experience right across the board.
“The key is not to run away from it or hide. It's to embrace it and say well, it is what it is, we've got a couple of smacks, and we've got to make sure we learned some lessons from it. It’s my job to lead that.”
New Zealand Rugby confirmed there will be a routine end-of-season review of the team’s year which could address some issues but the body have already come out in support of Foster to hush those suggesting a replacement could be on the way.
Foster said he accepts that is just part of the job too.
“I know that everyone bays for blood at times like this, and that's the nature of the job,” he said. “But, our goal is to make sure that we've got the right plan going forward.
“As an All Black coach I'm always accountable, but every test is important. So, it's not just about building for the World Cup it’s about getting next year right.”
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