Seven candidates for the vacant All Blacks head coach job

Really think Vern Cotter is the best choice. He is tough, has international experience, and he will get respectability back for the All Blacks.

Joe Schmidt is a brilliant coach, however he has a sick son, and the AB job is just not in the cards, in my view.

I agree with those that say both Cotter and Joseph have a good track record into whipping their sides into disciplined units. I also agree with those that say both sides were lacking the “X” factor on offense. I think they need someone like Mick Byrne to add that edge.

The photo sums up quite well the duel that will, in my opinion, be played out between Joseph and Rennie, the two favourites for the job.

Joseph loses credibility without Tony Brown, and it would be surprising to see NZR choose a coach who finished the 2025 Super Rugby season in last place. Joseph’s whole career can’t be reduced to that alone, but it’s clearly not a point in his favour.

Rennie actually seems to be the most solid choice. He won with the Chiefs, coached in Europe and then the Wallabies. He has a positive record against Erasmus, which isn’t something many people can claim. Above all, he’s a coach who has been highly respected everywhere he’s been. Everyone describes him as a great manager and an excellent communicator with his players.

He ticks a lot of boxes. And he’s coaching Ardie Savea in Japan… for me, he’s the favourite.

Cotter, I don’t really believe in. He doesn’t seem to have the same charisma as Rennie. I find him a bit old-school. The forward-oriented game he developed with the Blues won’t be enough with the All Blacks. Maybe as an assistant.

Personally, I’d rather dream of O’Gara as an assistant, to run the attack. He’s struggling with La Rochelle at the moment, and seeing him break his contract to join New Zealand doesn’t seem completely far-fetched to me.

Schmidt, I don’t believe it. He won’t take on such an intense full-time role.

There’s also a lot of talk about the Pumas’ attack coach, Lynn. It’s interesting, but his contract may not be terminable.

8. Warren Gatland

For all Kirk's delusions about "the best coaching job in rugby", this is as much about who wants the head coach job as who NZR wants to give it to, and what NZR are offering is abysmal.

Robertson has been scapegoated for all the problems with AB rugby, all of which go back nine seasons, the players decide who the coach is, the expectations of the fans are extreme and increasingly deluded, while the "winner" will also have no idea who the CEO is because of the gross disorganisation of Kirk's NZR. Or the head of High Performance.

The real kicker though is that the job itself is extremely pressured, short term, and near suicidal. After the AB's probable failure to win anything significant in 2026 or 2027 while enduring as many or more losses than Robertson's AB's, a vindicative NZR will fire whoever they put into the head coach job.

Jamie Joseph. He's the media favourite, but given he's only 56 he may look at a bid in 2027 with Tony Brown, given what little success he has had has been with Brown. Or maybe he will look to position himself as an assistant, getting his foot in the door without necessarily putting his head on the block.

Dave Rennie. He qualifies, but he also has a massive amount of baggage with NZR after his departure from the Chiefs. He is however 62, so this is effectively his last chance to be AB's head coach.

Vern Cotter. He's easily the best qualified of the candidates, and he is also 63, so this is also effectively his last chance to be AB's head coach. Really, he's the ideal candidate for the short term, high pressure, now or never job that NZR are offering.

Smith is 68, has been vocal about his contempt for NZR politics, so that's effectively impossible.

The idea it could be Schmidt is bizarre. He is literally coaching another country for the first three tests in 2026, seems unlikely to be available for the long and arduous SA tour because of personal issues, and based on precedent with his refusal to join Foster in the AB's until after the Ireland series in 2022, almost certainly won't be involved until after the Bledisloe's. Which takes him out of half of the tests between now and RWC 2027. Which makes him kinda pointless, even if he was willing to be head coach. In reality its doubtful he could even be an assistant.

The NZR, the fans and the media need to get their heads around the idea that "the best coaching job in rugby" is, at the moment and from a head coach POV, a poison pill. The question is, who's willing to swallow it?

Where’s my Jake White shout???

“Vern Cotter – BluesThe hard-nosed former Fiji and Scotland head coach would certainly shake up proceedings in black, likely shifting the playing style to a simpler, forwards-based game plan.”

With what forwards… they were already on roller skates vs the Boks in Wellington. Expect the same from a gnarly French pack.

I think fundamentally Razors coaching ticket fell over not due to lack of skill but due to a lack of experience, especially test match experience and experience in different organisations.

Not just from Razor himself but his assistants too, so the assistants are almost as interesting a selection as the head coach themselves.

At a minimum we need:

- An experienced head coach

- At least a couple of assistants with test match experience these could even be former head coaches.

Once that experience is there as a foundation, you are more free to select specialists up and coming assistants that could become really good as long as they are supported. I’m thinking Jamie Macintosh, Tyler Blyendaal, Cory Jane etc etc

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTjr82fksKb

Maybe Vern Cotter and Jamie Joseph could work together like Steve Hansen and Graham Henry did? Whoever they pick the ABs gonna be fine, it’s the selecting of out of form players, unsettled best 23 and a concerning weak defence we should be more worried about! And when other teams go with a 6:2 split impressive bench we need to counter that

What I find bizarre is that on every criteria Vern Cotter either beats or matches Jamie Joseph, yet Joseph is still the favourite.

Cotter has better results at a higher level at both international and club level, all without the presence of a vital assistant. He has much better experience in dealing with and imposing confrontational rugby in 6N with Scotland and Top 14, which is exactly what the AB’s need to impose, whereas Joseph only has SR experience and with Japan. He also gets instant results, unlike Joseph. And like Joseph he is an NZR employee, has been back for two years and knows the players.

It shouldn’t even be a contest. Yet Joseph is still the favourite. But then that status has been given to him by the NZ rugby media, the people who were happy to peddle the idiotic belief that Tony Brown could be coaching for the AB’s against the Springboks this year if Joseph got the job.

No Rob Penney on the list.

Common sense says Joseph. He’s in NZ, he knows the players, he coaches high intensity rugby, he is innovative, he is well liked by the rugby public here, he has strong international experience, he is tough and he can work with other coaches (hopefully Schimdt, O’Gara or similar). And he can go straight to work - the longer this drags on the closer 2026 becomes a write off.