Justin Marshall reacts to Tana Umaga's possible All Blacks role

Former All Black halfback Justin Marshall has weighed in on the possible role with the All Blacks for his former teammate, and current Moana Pasifika head coach, Tana Umaga.

Umaga responded to reports on Sunday evening at Eden Park, after rumours circulated about a possible role as one of Dave Rennie’s assistant coaches.

“I’ve been approached,” he said on The Breakdown.

“Like he said, there’s quite a few things to work through, and there’s things that you need to work through to make sure that the fits right. Conversations are conversations, but there’s got to be an agreement about where do I sit in the picture here?

“What do I take control of? I am actually a head coach here, so you’ve got to work all those things out, and they’ve got to do their due diligence, man, because it’s been off recently within the coaching structure and we’ve seen assistants leaving, so they’ve got to get this right.

“Fantastic, you have a guy like that walking into the changing shed who’ been in there and been All Black captain before. When he finds his role, that’s going to bring something special to it because having a guy like that walking in there and inspiring the players.”

The 81-Test former All Black halfback wants New Zealand Rugby to make sure that the assistant coaches will work in the environment, especially with what played out under the last regime.

“What we’re trying to say is you can’t just put somebody in there because they’ve got the respect and they’ve done some coaching like Tana. You’ve got to make sure that the fit works and that when he is in that environment, that one of the things that people have said a lot about is too many people, too many voices.

“Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. So you put too much personnel in there, you’re going straight back to having all those voices that the players are getting frustrated with.”

“And I think it’s working out what his actual role is. No question about whether he walks into the change room, the respect he’s going to have. He was very instrumental when he became captain, in terms of, you hear what they’ve really said, the culture, that’s the one thing he wants to really dig deep into.

“We know he’s been a defensive coach, he’s also been a head coach. He’s also come back from having a break and then going back to the Blues, just with consultancy, right? And so they’ll be trying to establish what’s his actual role is and what will he do? Because there’s other guys as well that will come in behind Dave Rennie as well.”

Sport Nation’s Alex Chapman and 1News’ Scotty Stevenson first reported that Umaga was in talks with the new All Blacks head coach, but nothing was confirmed by either party about what role, or if these talks had taken place.

Last week, Umaga called the rumours “speculation”.

“I don’t really deal in speculation. I’m really honoured and privileged to be involved in the conversation. But it’s just that. I suppose it was my turn this week. I saw there’s a lot of names involved in who Rens is looking for,” Umaga told reporters in Auckland.

“My family are the ones that are letting me know what’s happening, and I’m getting a lot of these texts, so I had to turn my phone off.”