LONG READ Why the All Blacks overlooking Joe Schmidt could yet hurt them in the Bledisloe battle

There was a moment during the All Blacks recent loss to South Africa in Cape Town when the TV camera found New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson in the crowd, his face set like thunder as he sensed that another defeat was coming.

But there was maybe something deeper than annoyance, or frustration brewing within Robinson.

There was maybe an element of regret, or panic, that he had made a terrible mistake by effectively deciding to axe former All Blacks coach Ian Foster in February last year.

Robinson will say there was no axing, and that he and his board simply decided to break with tradition and conduct the process to find the next All Blacks coach six months before a World Cup.

There had been widespread criticism in 2019, when after Steve Hansen announced a year ahead of his contract expiring that he would not be seeking reappointment, that NZR waited until after the World Cup that year to start the search for his successor.

Waiting 10 months to get on with the process meant a host of good candidates – Dave Rennie, Jamie Joseph and Tony Brown to name a few – committed to jobs elsewhere, and the All Blacks arguably didn’t get the best coaching group but the nest available coaching group.

With that in mind, Robinson and his board decided in early 2023 that they were not going to let history repeat and hence opened applications for the All Blacks coaching role (to start in 2024).

But as much as they tried to claim it was bringing New Zealand into line with other countries and was high-performance best practice, there was an equally compelling argument to say this was deliberately designed to ensure the process led to Crusaders coach Scott Robertson getting the job.

By holding the process in February 2023, Foster knew he didn’t have the results behind him to make a strong bid. He needed to be judged on what he delivered at the World Cup and without the chance to do that, he decided he wouldn’t apply.

And, arguably, NZR suspected that Foster wouldn’t apply and even if he did, they already knew that they wanted to give the job to Robertson, who had delivered six Super Rugby titles and was reportedly in high demand around the world.

Schmidt brought experience from the Northern Hemisphere and vast knowledge about the international game and he was held in such high regard by the board, that when there was a possibility mid-way through 2022 that they were going to sack Foster, the former Ireland supremo was asked if he would be willing to work with Robertson

The last thing they wanted was yet more media headlines suggesting they had sat on their hands and lost another great potential All Blacks head coach.

The only downside of running the process early was that it meant NZR would also lose Joe Schmidt, the former Ireland coach having joined Foster’s team as an assistant in 2022.

Schmidt brought experience from the Northern Hemisphere and vast knowledge about the international game and he was held in such high regard by the board, that when there was a possibility mid-way through 2022 that they were going to sack Foster, the former Ireland supremo was asked if he would be willing to work with Robertson – who was being lined up to take over.

The board had asked Robertson, should he have to step into the role at short notice, who he would take with him, and they felt his wider coaching team was missing international experience. They said it lacked a real heavyweight who could help prepare the team for a knock-out fixture against either Ireland or South Africa – who the All Blacks were destined to play in the 2023 World Cup quarter-final.

Hence the reason for seeing whether Schmidt could be included. When Schmidt said no to Robertson, the board flipped and decided to retain Foster.

But by early 2023, even Schmidt was seen as dispensable in the quest to get Robertson installed in the head coaching role and, perhaps, all this was spinning around in Robinson’s head as the cameras panned in on him in Cape Town as he watched the All Blacks, for the fourth successive Test, fail to score any points in the final quarter.

Foster took ample media criticism for his record, but the All Blacks won the Rugby Championship in 2021, 2022 and 2023 – beating South Africa at least once in all three years – they posted a 90 per cent win ratio against Australia.

The defeat in Cape Town killed any realistic chance of retaining the Rugby Championship and saw the Freedom Cup transfer to South Africa for the first time in history.

This was never meant to be how things would play out in 2024, and there’s no question that Robinson and his board may have underestimated the coaching qualities of Foster and Schmidt.

Foster took ample media criticism for his record, but the All Blacks won the Rugby Championship in 2021, 2022 and 2023 – beating South Africa at least once in all three years – they posted a 90 per cent win ratio against Australia, made the final of the World Cup and won 70 per cent of their Tests.

It wasn’t the same sort of success the All Blacks had enjoyed under Steve Hansen who between 2012 and 2019, won 87 per cent of the time, but it was better than the record Robertson is amassing in 2024, which has his team lose a home game to Argentina, and fail to win in South Africa which means there is virtually no chance of retaining the Rugby Championship.

But the real kicker in all this may yet still be to come, because the full impact of the decision to axe Foster last year has maybe not yet have been felt.

One of the other by-products of that decision was Schmidt leaving New Zealand to take up the role as head coach of the Wallabies.

And so NZR have ousted a coaching duo that were delivering a 71 per cent win ratio, for one that is sitting on a 57 per cent win rate, and they have seen one half of that duo jump the ditch to work for the enemy where his presence will unquestionably be felt in these upcoming Bledisloe Cup clashes.

Nothing will scream mistake quite like seeing a Schmidt-coached Wallabies beat the All Blacks for the first time since 2020.

Surely, though, such a scenario is too far-fetched, as the Wallabies capitulated in their last Test, going down 67-20 to the Pumas.

But modern rugby is such that games can get away on teams and the scoreline in Santa Fe will likely prove an aberration.

This Bledisloe clash, is however, one which the All Blacks really can’t afford to lose. They are coming into it on the back of consecutive defeats, and a third will leave them on a 50 per cent win ratio in 2024 and open a whole series of questions about NZR’s decision-making in early 2023.

All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan says he can see that Schmidt has already had a positive impact on the Wallabies even if the results to date don’t necessarily suggest that.

“They’ll want to play fast,” Ryan said of the Wallabies. “He puts a lot of work into the breakdown side of things.

“He’s had a good influence on their side already. He knows the game. I’ve got a lot of respect for him. Come this test, they’ll be right on – as we will be too.”

It’s supposedly true that the All Blacks can’t afford to lose any Test such is the value of their winning legacy built over more than 100 years, but their fan base and commercial backers all accept that the record can’t be perfect.

This Bledisloe clash, is however, one which the All Blacks really can’t afford to lose. They are coming into it on the back of consecutive defeats, and a third will leave them on a 50 per cent win ratio in 2024 and open a whole series of questions about NZR’s decision-making in early 2023.

NZR won’t be able to cope with a scenario in which the coach they let go then masterminds a stunning and unexpected defeat of the All Blacks.

It will be an unimaginably difficult pill for NZR to swallow seeing Schmidt outfox and outcoach the All Blacks – something he did twice before when he was with Ireland.

That scenario would be disastrous for personal reputations within the NZR executive, it would be disastrous for Robertson’s tenure, and it would be disastrous for the commercial team who are trying to sell sponsorships on the strength of the win record.

It’s hardly an exaggeration, then, to suggest that the pressure on the All Blacks is intense to not just retain the Bledisloe but outsmart and out coach Schmidt is considerable.

The public need to see NZR’s decision to appoint Robertson in the manner in which it did, justified, and it has to come by producing a comprehensive victory in Sydney in which the All Blacks play imaginative and cohesive rugby.