Sir Wayne Smith says he still sees himself as a "little kid from Putāruru" despite a huge year of accolades.
Sir Wayne is a semi-finalist in the New Zealander of the Year award after leading the Black Ferns to the Rugby World Cup title on home soil last year. The result also clinched Sir Wayne the World Rugby's Coach of the Year award.
The decorated coach admits to being amazed by his career.
"I'm still in a bit of a state of shock about it all," he told Breakfast this morning, fresh off a flight from Japan where he was helping old mate Dave Rennie with the Kobe Steelers. "Things have happened really quickly.
"There's been a few accolades and that, but I just really see myself still as that little kid from Putāruru."
Sir Wayne's also lending the All Blacks a hand as a performance coach.
"It's a new role, so I'm not too sure [what it looks like] myself," he admitted. "But essentially, I'm doing a bit of work with Scott Robertson with the All Blacks and Allan Bunting with the Black Ferns ... "diverse opinions, different perspectives on things, giving new ideas to try and find different solutions sometimes to old problems."
The game is going to change, Sir Wayne predicted.
"There's going to be some massive differences, I think, over the next few years as to the game that we see today," he said. "Both from a safety point of view but also from an exhilaration perspective."
Beyond rugby, Sir Wayne is a life member of the Foundation for Conductive Education, which supports Kiwis with physical disabilities.
"We've got twin boys and one of the boys, Josh, has cerebral palsy," he explained.
"Through sort of the education that he got and the work that was put in by different people, we got involved with Conductive Education, which is probably world-leading, I think, in terms of working with people with physical disabilities."
Other semi finalists for the award include football chief Sarai Bareman, community worker Dave Letele, Lee Timutimu, Blair Rawiri Anaru Jamieson, professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, journalist Rachel Smalley, Haehaetu Barrett, Jim Salinger and Kiri Nathan.
Last year's winner was professor Rangi Mātāmua.
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