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'There's no point in hiding it' - Steve Tew sheds light on coaching search

By Online Editors
New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew has confirmed that the search for a new coaching staff won’t commence until after next year’s Rugby World Cup.

After current head coach Steve Hansen announced Friday that he would step away after next year’s showpiece event, Tew told Stuff that he expects whoever eventually assumes the role to bring in their own staff.

“It’s very unusual to just pick one coach,” Tew told Stuff. “We would anticipate a candidate arriving with a team which is what Graham did in 2004.

“He turned up for the interview and said the two guys I’d like to bring with me, and have indicated a strong desire to come, are Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen.

“When I heard that in the interview room, I thought that’s probably the dream team. They were two guys we knew and deeply respected and were overseas at the time enhancing what they knew.”

After whispers that New Zealand Rugby – who have a history of promoting from within – already have their man, Tew said he didn’t want the upcoming vacancy to be a distraction for the current staff heading to the World Cup.

“There’s no point in hiding it, we are hoping Ian [assistant coach Ian Foster] will be a candidate and the last thing you would want to do is distract him and the people around him before the World Cup,” Tew said.

“Other candidates might well be coaching at the World Cup too, so we’ll give them their space until it’s finished.”

Tew also confirmed the team are anticipating having a new coach appointed before the end of next year.

“We stay in contact with all the people you anticipate we should stay in contact with. No one should be surprised about the process we’re going to follow because it’s been well signalled and communicated to all the people on your current ‘who’s going to be next coach’ list.

“While that [World Cup] review is being done we’ll be in the market. And we’ll feed the findings from the campaign into the process. That will tell us some things about where the team is at and might change the emphasis you put on the new coach required. But we’ll have it done by Christmas of 2019.”

Hansen has been involved with the All Blacks since 2004, and has been head coach in 2012.

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Flankly 17 hours ago
The AI advantage: How the next two Rugby World Cups will be won

If rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.

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