Kane Jury details priorites in New Zealand Rugby's new pathways role

Kane Jury has now completed his transition from Highlanders assistant coach to New Zealand Rugby men’s national pathways head coach, and has detailed his initial priorities for the role.

Jury has worked across the rugby ecosystem, with stints in the school, provincial, Super Rugby, and international Sevens environments, all of which have shaped an understanding of the development needs at each level of the game.

As the national pathways coach, he’ll coach both the New Zealand U20 and New Zealand Schools teams, in addition to overseeing the development channels and programs across the country and throughout the high-performance system.

Now he has his feet under the desk in the newly created role, Jury says his first job is to connect with the people he’ll be working closely with over the next two years.

“My first 60-90 days, I think it’s really important to connect with our schools, provincial unions, and Super Rugby clubs,” Jury told Scotty and Izzy on Sport Nation.

“Yesterday I had four calls with the provincial unions, talking about the importance of connecting with the schools, and requiring their help to do so.

“We feel like there’s been some really good information that’s been filtered down to us from reviews, which we want to share, and then we want to make sure that we move forward with it.

“So, I feel like the first part’s going to be a lot of Zooms, I’m almost Zoom’d out already, but I think that’s really important.

“And in that, just the presence, the presence of being there with them; for me, I think it’s critical we understand that it’s a shared responsibility.

“My responsibility? To communicate well, to be a conduit between the All Blacks, New Zealand Rugby, and make sure that’s filtered down into the age-grade programs as well.”

Jury added that his calls with the respective clubs, schools and unions will also aim to bring some consistency around language, best practices, and development strategies for young players.

“The most important thing for me is understanding that there are always opportunities on the pathway,” he said. “Sometimes, it happens for you really quickly; sometimes it doesn’t.

“But, to keep the love of the game going, for me, is always about sharing information with the provincial unions and ensuring that they’ve got competitions which are varied.”

Jury said his aim is to ensure that clarity and consistency are felt across the country, and while at lower levels, that predominantly applies to players with ambitions of playing professional rugby, he wanted club rugby in general to thrive and fuel pride in community across the regions.

“I think that’s the heart and soul of New Zealand Rugby… I see club rugby here in Dunedin, and I see how patriotic people are, how passionate they are about their clubs. All our young guys need to experience that, 100 per cent.”

Enacting any changes proposed in recent reviews is something Jury will work towards once he’s worked through the initial connections phase.

“That side of the role, the pathways and competitions will probably be a bit further down the track.”