It was third time lucky for Scott “Razor” Robertson when he was finally appointed as All Blacks coach. He spoke to Scotty Stevenson about managing the fear that comes with the top job.
“All Blacks win, it’s what we do.”
There was no doubt in the voice. Scott Robertson, sitting in his living room talking about his new job in-depth for the first time since his appointment in March this year, knew exactly what is expected from his All Blacks, because it’s exactly what has always been expected from the All Blacks.
We had arrived at lunchtime, pressed the buzzer on the gate and been welcomed in. Robertson wore a loose-fitting white t-shirt, shorts, no shoes. He had been for a surf that morning, and had been fielding phone calls since. His old school earbuds were attached to his phone, one was attached to his ear, the other hung over his shoulder. Inside, Monday Night Football played on the television: Chiefs v Eagles.
The home, the castle. Here on this coastal slip of Christchurch where the cold easterly blows and the sun’s warmth radiates off the cliff edge is, for Robertson and his family, a perfect paradise. It suits him. “Two minutes to the rugby club, one minute to the beach.”
He is as much a part of Canterbury rugby folklore as anyone now. Wayne Smith, Robbie Deans, Steve Hansen, Dan Carter, Richie McCaw. Razor’s name sits beside them and, in terms of title success, above all. He was the Mount Maunganui beach kid drafted from Bay of Plenty by the Crusaders in that inaugural year of Super Rugby, 1996. Apart from a couple of seasons in France and Japan, he’s been in the Garden City since. They embrace him, in all his anti-orthodoxy.
He was always attracted to rugby, loved the contact and the fight. And he was always going to do things his way.
“I was told that if I wanted to be serious about rugby I would have to move to Tauranga Boys’ College, but if I did that I wouldn’t have been able to surf at lunchtime.
“Instead I aspired to be the first All Black from my school, so I reckon I had a bit of a pioneering mindset even then.”
He would go on to be the first Test All Black from Mount Maunganui College. Eddie Stokes, also known as Eddie Taite, had been selected for the All Blacks tour to South America in 1976, but never won an official Test cap.
Robertson was a tough openside, noticeable for his blond crew cut and square features. He had a good shoulder on him and knew how to make a tackle. He says he thrived on the contact, and cherished the physical side of the game.
“Growing up I always wanted to know who the alpha was on the other team, who was their big dog. I’d make it my mission to go after him and I loved that.”
He credits his competitiveness to his mum, who ferried him to every sporting event imaginable. His father was always on hand to offer constructive feedback. They remain incredibly close and are known simply and affectionately as Mo and Jo.
Robertson was a part of Sir Gordon Tietjens’ Bay of Plenty side when the Crusaders came calling, and he never looked back.
In 1998 he won his first cap for the All Blacks and spent four years in the team before being dropped for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He still feels the pain of that omission. He says it was “devastating”. It was a tough era for the All Blacks, and Robertson’s win percentage as a player was 73%, by All Blacks’ standards that is no vintage return.
'A lot of pressure'
“All Black 974, born in 1974, so that’s the way I remember that! It was a difficult period, and the Australians were a great side, but All Blacks win, that’s what you do. There was a lot going on around that team, a lot of transition. And there was a lot of pressure.
“It was hugely informative for me, learning to enjoy the pressure, learning to deal with being in and out of the team, and learning to trust in and believe in myself. All of the skills I learned then would go on to help me as a coach."
And this is what you may not know about Scott Robertson. He knew when he became an All Black, that one day he wanted to be All Blacks coach. That certainty, that deep-seeded ambition, is clear to anyone who has worked with him, but for the public it is masked by the surfer hair and – yes – the breakdancing celebrations.
His passion for coaching was sparked by another Canterbury and New Zealand Rugby icon, Sir Wayne Smith.
“Smithy taught me the love of the game, what it can give you. He was always so appreciative of the great rewardism, the camaraderie, the people we would get to meet, and the places we would get to travel.
“Through all the amazing highs and lows he would always be learning something and feeding that back to the group. That genuine love is something I have always tried to foster. I am a natural optimist so when things go wrong, or don’t quite go to plan, I dive back in and go again.”
Robertson called time on his playing days in New Zealand in 2003. He had by that stage been pushed to No. 8 by his protégé, one Richie McCaw. He would spend the next three seasons with Perpignan in France, playing more than 50 matches, before one final season in Japan with Ricoh. When he returned to Christchurch he was ready to coach.
“I thought I was straight in there,” he said, laughing at himself.
“I bowled up to [then Crusaders coach] Robbie Deans and said righto, let’s get into it! He looked at me and said, ‘OK son, I’ll let you know when we have something available.’
“What he was saying to me was, get back to the grassroots, humble yourself and learn your trade at club level and when you are ready for the next opportunity, the next opportunity will be there for you. It was great advice.”
The Sumner club, nestled on a small suburban square under the tip of the Port Hills, would welcome him, and he in return would guide them upward, through the divisions. “The Wave” was the making of him as a coach, and in those seasons in the wind and the rain and the mud, he was able to craft his own style, one that would define his later success.
“I wanted to be a head coach so I had to be an expert in all areas and there was no better place than my beloved Sumner for developing. All three of my sons played for the club, my late father-in-law was the manager, and we had the time of our lives.
“I learned to inspire the bricklayer, the bloke digging footings, people from all walks of life and I learned what it took to help them win. Through all the challenges, what drove me most was the creation of a vision for a team, one that connects and motivates everyone. I would coach them on and off for 10 years, and I loved it.”
Success with the Crusaders
The opportunities promised by Deans did present themselves. He would have technical roles with Canterbury and the Crusaders, then assistant and head coach roles with Canterbury, leading them to title success. He had an opportunity to coach the New Zealand under-20 side, guiding them to a world championship, and in 2017 he got his shot with the Crusaders. They won seven straight Super Rugby titles.
“I remember saying to [then Crusaders assistant coach] Jason Ryan after the first one, ‘you know I reckon we could win five of these things'. I guess I under-clubbed on that one.”
One of the great surprises of spending a day at the Robertson homestead is that there is barely a visible hint of his career to be found. There are no framed jerseys, no photographs of teams and celebrations, no memorabilia on permanent display. The only taonga is a pounamu patu, gifted to Robertson after his 100th game as Crusaders coach.
“This means so much to me. I love where it is from and what it means and the story behind it. I also love that people can see it and touch it and transfer energy with it. I played 86 games for the club and to coach them 100 times is an incredible privilege.”
He wanted to be an All Blacks coach. And he thought he was ready in 2019. The Crusaders were humming, and the All Blacks had fallen to a fired-up England side in the semifinal of the Rugby World Cup.
The rugby establishment had a decision to make between ‘continuity’ and a radical transformation. Those who plumped for the former had been its beneficiaries. Outgoing All Blacks Coach Sir Steve Hansen plumped for his assistant, Ian Foster, just as Sir Graham Henry had done for Hansen.
Others wondered why you would continue with more of the same when the All Blacks looked so obviously on the wane.
Robertson put his team together: Leon MacDonald, who had been with the Crusaders and New Zealand under-20s, Jason Ryan, his trusty lieutenant, Jason Holland, who had coached in Ireland and was back with the Hurricanes, and Scott Hansen, a largely behind-the-scenes coach who Robertson says works harder than anyone he has coached with.
It was a fresh lineup, but one with limited international experience. The conservative point of view was that you had to have coached internationally before taking the All Blacks job. That point of view was considered by some to be as self-serving as the continuity perspective. In the end, it won the day for Foster.
“For whatever reason. They went another way. I think there was a bit of fear in that decision, maybe they just weren’t ready for change. They took the continuity route and ironically that didn’t work out for them. It was hard, but yesterday’s a heavy backpack, you have to cut it off. I think the disappointment was important because there was a lot more to come, and it prepared me.”
All Blacks struggling
“A lot more to come” is an understatement. The world was gripped by Covid, rugby was thrown into chaos, and emerging from the pandemic, the All Blacks were failing to fire.
In Foster’s first season in charge, the team played six Tests, winning three, drawing one, and losing two.
One of those losses was a first ever against Argentina. 2021 started promisingly, with blow-out wins against Fiji and Tonga and a solitary loss to South Africa in the Rugby Championship.
On the end-of-year tour, however, the All Blacks were defeated by both Ireland and France, two teams they would be on a collision course with at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Inside, the team was frustrated. In 2022, Ireland defeated the All Blacks twice in New Zealand to claim an historic series win. Foster sacked two assistants, Brad Mooar and John Plumtree, and went after Robertson’s man.
Jason Ryan is a key part of the Scott Robertson story. He was the coach Robertson took a punt on when he took the Crusaders role. Untested at that level, Ryan proved himself from the outset, guiding the Crusaders' pack to glory. He was always going to be on Robertson’s All Blacks ticket, and now here he was being asked by Robertson’s rival to jump ship.
“It was tough, really tough,” Robertson said as he recalls the initial call from Ryan.
“In the back of my mind, though, I’m thinking who would they take? Of course they would take him. He’s gold. I just reminded myself that my job is to create All Blacks and it should be no different with my staff. The best thing for the country was Jason and while that didn’t make it easier, who would I have been to say he couldn’t follow his dream?
“Look at the impact he has had. I watched him in there and just couldn’t wait to be there too! What he’s been able to do for that team has made me so proud and the way we navigated that was really mature and professional, and personal.”
It was an incredible time for the All Blacks, and for Robertson. Three years before, his coaching team was not deemed ready for the job, now his assistant was the All Blacks forwards coach, and another of his team, Leon MacDonald, was the coach of the freshly minted All Blacks XV, a touring side created to further spread brand All Blacks.
Meanwhile, three weeks after the series loss to Ireland, the All Blacks were humbled again, this time by South Africa in Mbombela. The wheels were coming off.
New Zealand Rugby pushed the panic button and approached Robertson.
“I was contacted, and asked if I was interested and I said I'm still ready. I'll have a crack at it whenever you want me to. This was what I had been getting myself ready for, so I got the team together, went through all the different scenarios and then I got a phone call half an hour before their press conference to say they were staying with the status quo.”
On August 16, 2022, Ian Foster was re-confirmed as All Blacks coach until the end of the Rugby World Cup in 2023.
Three days earlier the team had beaten the Springboks at Ellis Park, an emotional victory that was as much a stay of execution as it was a rugby triumph. Several senior All Blacks had come out publicly to support the embattled coach, while others visited with New Zealand Rugby CEO, Mark Robinson to convince him to stay loyal.
Eleven days after Foster was re-confirmed, the All Blacks were beaten by Argentina in Christchurch. It was their first loss at home against the Pumas.
“I was determined to stay in the fight,” said Robertson. “I knew I would have one last shot at it, and I guess I was thinking either I am third time lucky or I will be in different colours.
“It felt like an election campaign in many ways, except the public doesn’t get the chance to go to the polling booth."
The public did have a voice, though, in fact they had many of them. In the atomised and fractured world of social media, the grumbling continued.
New Zealand Rugby’s most important asset is the All Blacks, the one brand that it hangs its hat on. That brand had been built upon dominance, and a winning record unrivalled in professional sport.
Private equity had flowed into the game here because of that brand. It felt to many that the golden goose was having its neck wrung. There were demands for greater access to the team for broadcast and commercial content, demands that were turned down. There was the ever-pressing demand for wins.
Behind the scenes, New Zealand Rugby knew they wanted a new direction. And they would be forced to take it sooner than they may have liked.
The All Blacks finished the 2022 season with a 25-all draw against England at Twickenham. It may have been just another result had it not been for the fact the All Blacks had led 25-6 with 10 minutes to play.
NZ Rugby scrambling
It felt like a capitulation. And it meant that the debate between Foster and Robertson would continue over the summer. In early February, Robertson dropped a bombshell, telling reporters that New Zealand Rugby were ready to move on appointing an All Blacks coach before Foster’s current term had run its course.
New Zealand Rugby scrambled immediately to deny they were that advanced, but what had been said could not be unsaid. Over the next several weeks, Ian Foster gave interviews to a select group of media to decry the ‘destabilising’ effect such a process would have on the All Blacks and their chances at Rugby World Cup.
In one memorable statement, Foster took aim at both New Zealand Rugby and his rival coach, saying “a particular frustration is that there seems to be a focus on setting timetables based on what some preferred candidates feel is right for them versus potentially what is right for this All Blacks team”.
What was right for New Zealand Rugby, it seemed, was certainty. On March 1 this year, they announced their decision to appoint the All Blacks coach for the 2024-27 period. On March 21 they appointed Scott Robertson. Ian Foster had declined to participate in the process.
“To be able to ring Mo and Jo and tell them was pretty special. I almost had to take a photo of the signed contract to show them,” he recalled, laughing.
“They just said they were proud. It was special.”
And then there’s Jane, Robertson’s wife who he first met at Lincoln University in 1996. He says he sat in front of “the most beautiful girl in the class. Jane got a double degree so she got hers and mine.”
It is obvious Jane has been Robertson’s biggest confidante, supporter, collaborator and champion. It is also obvious that without her guidance and counsel, he may not be in the position he is now.
“She knew how much this meant and she has been incredible for my entire career. She knew that I went deep for this and stayed in the fight and she will be there to help like she always has been. There was joy and relief when I got the job because of the journey to get here, especially over the last three years. There’s been a lot to get through and this means a lot to both of us.”
And now he is in the role, having officially started on November 1. It is clear that the work is almost constant. In our time together the phone rang constantly – calls from the management team, New Zealand Rugby executives, the Players' Association. He has put his people in place – the same coaching group that he originally applied for the job with. He says he is ready to go.
“I had 11 years as a head coach coming into this, and I have a great coaching group around me, people I can trust, and who will challenge me and support me. There are massive expectations and my preparation to meet those is really good. I’ve got good mentors, I’ve got good daily habits and I have good energy. I know adversity is going to come, but I have to face that.
“I’m also well aware of the balance we need to strike between performance and the commercial side of the game. We want to win on the field and off it, and so it is a collaboration and you achieve that through a collective mindset.
“If you fight it, push it back, it becomes a drag. People want eyes on their sport, and money for their game. We’re going to play our part.”
Senior players at the Crusaders have often praised Robertson for his ability as a ‘campaign coach’. He has themed every one of his winning seasons with the Crusaders, often using other champion teams as the side’s season-long motivation. He thinks deeply about them, and the team buys in. It has worked at club level, but will it work with the All Blacks?
“I’ll take plenty of things that I have learned with me, but the All Blacks has its own incredible story. I’m a storyteller by nature so we want to get into the weeds – who are we? Where are we going? It’s my job to inspire them and connect us all. How do we create a culture for these guys to shine each and every week?
“One thing I am very proud of is that my teams are mentally and physically tough. When it comes to finals footy they step up. The biggest games, the biggest moments, that’s what we are about. This sport has given me a stage and I love that. Full stadiums, big games. It’s what drives me and it’s what drives great teams.”
He said the World Cup is the pinnacle, and gestured with his hands to say the trajectory towards that ultimate goal may not be so linear. There will be ups and downs but if the All Blacks are to prosper under him, they will still be expected to win, no matter what the series or occasion.
“That’s the challenge and I embrace that. The weight of that expectation creates the tension which comes with a bit of fear, but we will take that fear and turn it around. We love fear. So we will reframe and rename and I love doing that.”
The All Blacks will begin the 2024 season against England in a home series, and between then and now, another crop of youngsters will put their hands up for selection. They will be without a number of vastly experienced players who have taken contracts overseas. So what does Robertson look for as he seeks to fill those boots?
“An All Black under me has to love the pressure, has to have the ability to walk towards that. They are effort-based players. It’s great that their talent has got them this far but they will be asked to constantly show that effort – on the field and off the field. Effort is what you can control and when it comes to an All Blacks position you have to keep earning it and earning it. It can spit you out pretty quickly.”
We ended the day at the beach. Surfers, kite surfers and paddle boarders are scrapping over an easterly swell, the water churned up and green. Robertson had his surf that morning but he watched them all now in the late afternoon, barefoot in shallows. I asked him if he has any empathy for the man he has replaced.
“Of course I do. We're humans after all. But it's a professional game and you understand that when you have this kind of job - you're a public figure, people are going to pass judgement, there is expectation and results are what they look at.
“There's always a percentage beside your name, isn't there?”
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