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How new Hurricanes assistant Cory Jane has proven the value of being a star former player in the world of coaching
John Plumtree turned 50 during his first season as assistant coach of the Hurricanes.
By then he’d won provincial titles as a head coach in both Wales and South Africa and guided Wellington to NPC finals. Plumtree took the Sharks to a Super Rugby decider as well, before helping Joe Schmidt coach Ireland.
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The man was seasoned and successful, with a broad knowledge of rugby around the world.
Schalk Brits | Bringing home gold
The Hurricanes have now replaced him with Cory Jane, just as Carlos Spencer took Chris Boyd’s place on the coaching staff ahead of the 2019 season.
Jane is an immensely capable and likeable character and was certainly a fine player. But at 36, and less than three years removed from his last game as a Hurricane, pretty green in coaching terms.
No-one doubts that Jane is smart or that he won’t strike a rapport with the players, it’s just Super Rugby seems an odd place to serve your coaching apprenticeship. Especially when, with Plumtree now on the All Blacks’ staff, Jason Holland will be head coach of a team for the very first time.
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It’s a far cry from five years ago when Boyd and Plumtree rolled into town.
For fear of offending people, you do have to labour the point that Jane does appear competent. As for Spencer? Who knows? But between that pair and Holland you do have three men with a very similar area of expertise and fairly limited coaching experience.
Holland was probably always a head coach in the making, you just assumed his first appointment of that sort wouldn’t come at quite this level.
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In the case of Jane and Spencer, it again shows the value of being a name player and makes you wonder what all the career coaches out there think of these appointments.
Men such as Boyd, who’s now doing an excellent job at Northampton, but wanted to stay at the Hurricanes.
How good would it be if he were still at the helm, developing the team’s plans for life after Beauden Barrett and grooming Holland to be the next head coach.
Damian McKenzie in a @ChiefsRugby pre-season match sounds like a recipe for a great highlights reel.https://t.co/9nttt36Rx6 #SuperRugby
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 16, 2020
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It’s not so long ago that many New Zealand rugby fans were set on Joe Schmidt. The man had worked wonders in Ireland, they cried, and must succeed Steve Hansen as All Blacks coach.
Only Schmidt could’ve worked all those wonders here. He probably even wanted to.
It’s just that he didn’t have a great name as a player and, worse still, he then spent years coaching kids. Kids?! No serious rugby coach hones their skills with first XV or club players. Not the famous ones anyway. No, they pretty much start at Super level.
Had it not been for Vern Cotter, and an offer to come work in France, Schmidt might have been fondly remembered by the boys he coached at various schools, but largely unknown by everyone else.
It's all go at Bath today. https://t.co/ZolzcNACBk
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 16, 2020
Jane didn’t appoint himself. Nor Spencer. And it’s not their fault that Boyd or Cotter or Dave Rennie or whoever else ends up having to coach overseas, but Super Rugby coaching in New Zealand has become something of a young man’s game.
Yes, Warren Gatland’s got the Chiefs’ job now, but he’d have taken it a long time ago if he could’ve.
Overall, though, you look at the head and assistant coaches across this country’s franchises and it’s a far cry from the days when Graham Henry, Laurie Mains, Tony Gilbert, Gordon Hunter, Frank Oliver and Peter Sloane were around. Sure, it was a different era with rather different pathways, but coaches tended to come to those jobs with proven methods and varied life and rugby experiences.
Scott Robertson, who arrived at the Crusaders via the Sumner club and various roles with Canterbury, has been a conspicuous Super Rugby coaching success, but most of his peers are yet to demonstrate or develop quite the same ability to coordinate campaigns. Funny then that, despite winning three Super titles in succession, Robertson’s already talking about the need to seek more experience overseas.
To, in other words, go and do what Plumtree did before he was considered worthy of a Super Rugby assistant’s job in New Zealand.
In other news:
Comments on RugbyPass
The Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
3 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to comments