So, Scott Robertson, Jamie Joseph, or someone else?
Such have been the twists and turns of this long-running drama, it’s difficult to predict what will happen next and, indeed, who New Zealand Rugby will appoint as Ian Foster’s successor as All Blacks head coach.
But, apart from Robertson’s interest in the job and Foster’s disinterest in it from 2024 onwards, one other thing is certain: that Foster and his management team will prepare for a World Cup in France with a huge void between themselves and their employers.
A disconnection probably doesn’t do it justice – especially after how things played out yesterday at NZ Rugby’s Wellington headquarters.
There was an efficient, cold fury in Foster’s statement that he wouldn't wouldn't re-apply for the job delivered following the media address by chair Dame Patsy Reddy – in that position due to chief executive Mark Robinson being safely out of the way in the Northern Hemisphere attending World Rugby meetings.
"As I said last week, I felt the best thing for our team and for our entire management group was to have this process done after the Rugby World Cup,” Foster said. “That hasn't happened but we will accept the decision and move on.”
Foster will have been prepared for Reddy’s press conference after being informed of the board’s decision last week, but some of her answers to questions about the process will have grated and one would have felt like a dagger in his back.
Reddy said Foster and his management team were “comfortable” with the board’s decision when in reality they were anything but – as signalled by Foster’s own statement a few hours later.
It was a turn of phrase – accidental or otherwise - which will cement the impression among Foster and company that the establishment is completely out of touch, and the big question is how this chasm between the two sides will affect the All Blacks’ chances in September and October.
NZ Rugby will feel they have done nothing wrong, pointing out that the timeline for this process was signalled back in December when Robinson said they would break with tradition and either re-appoint Foster or name his successor before the World Cup.
In hindsight, though, certain individuals on the board may have wished they had extended Foster’s contract – the focus of frenzied speculation in July and August after the Ireland series defeat and big loss to South Africa - until only the end of last year rather than the end of this one.
There was always a huge danger that this is the way it would play out; that Foster, without an opportunity to improve on what is admittedly an unconvincing record since 2020, would have to lead a team to France knowing the tournament represented his last few weeks in the job.
The way both Robertson and Foster have attempted to use the media to stake their claims, while gratefully received by those behind the microphones, has been, shall we say, unorthodox, but it probably speaks to their feelings of powerlessness combined with an information vacuum from NZ Rugby.
Robertson, wildly successful with the Crusaders, said yesterday that speculation over his chances of getting the top job had been ongoing for the last couple of years, and last year he was on the brink getting it until the All Blacks won in Johannesburg.
It has been a remarkable sequence of events and Robertson or Joseph, presumably the two leading candidates, may be secretly wondering what they could be getting themselves into. A large percentage of the New Zealand public may be wondering the same thing.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs on both sides, though, Foster must follow through on his statement of accepting the decision and moving on, and that applies to his management team, too.
While on a different scale, his players are expected to put selection disappointments behind them, and sometimes on a weekly basis. He must do the same. An unlikely World Cup victory is depending on it.
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