After our victory in the 2002 Tri-Nations, it appeared as if management were starting to buy into what we were doing, and at last the administration began to show some enthusiasm towards us. Not that my relationship with Andrew Martin got any better, though.
Andrew had a strange manner with me and Robbie Deans. We just never gelled. I distinctly remember him saying to us during the court session in the team hotel in Umhlanga Rocks after we had clinched the Tri-Nations that he didn’t know what we had, but that we clearly had something. I never quite knew how to interpret that.
Earlier in the week, there had been a moment where Andrew’s competitiveness was evident. We were in the habit of running back from training, and after a practice at the Crusaders club, the management jumped off the bus in La Lucia to run the rest of the way back to Umhlanga. We were all supposed to run together, but Andrew just took off. It was clear he wanted to beat us – you could tell by the way he kept looking back over his shoulder to check where we were.
I said to Doc and Robbie: ‘He ain’t gonna win!’ As we got to the Umhlanga lighthouse, just before the Beverly Hills Hotel, I caught up with him. Needless to say, it was a quick run that day.
The night after our Tri-Nations victory, we made the most of the celebrations, as we weren’t due to fly out until 3 p.m. the next day. Byron Kelleher loved wearing trendy clothes. He was a good bugger, a really funny man. The guys decided to take Byron’s shirt off and give it to me to wear during the court session, and then afterwards they tore it to pieces – much to Byron’s distress. I’m sure he had enough money to buy a new one, though.
Later in the evening, I was convinced my drinks had been spiked. I had only had a few beers, which I can usually handle with ease, but this time I was violently ill.
We went to Melbourne to look at every logistical detail ahead of the 2003 World Cup, and it gave me an opportunity to express to Andrew Martin how I felt about him. We were at a local pub when I suggested to Andrew that it was his turn to buy us a beer. He was reluctant and said something to the effect that he didn’t like the place and that some guys were looking at him. He thought a fight might break out. Later he was distasteful to a taxi driver. I got the impression that he just didn’t enjoy our company.
The path I had chosen for the All Blacks differed from the one Andrew wanted. He was supposed to make my job easier, but that was not the case. I needed a facilitator, not a crisis manager. So we had a good heart to heart and at the end of it I told him it was clear that one of us would have to go.
I made the hard call and told him upfront: ‘You’re not my cup of tea. The All Blacks are more important than either of us.’ He can’t have liked what I said, but he took it on the chin and agreed to step down. Obviously, the NZRU had to deal with the HR procedures and it would have unsettled them, as it disrupted staff continuity and the management structure they had been putting in place.
I wanted Tony Thorpe to replace Martin, as he was a straight arrow and had no grey areas in his management style. He was the perfect guy for the job. He subsequently moved on from the All Blacks to the Crusaders and is currently at the Brumbies, and by all accounts he has done a great job wherever he has worked.
I had to go through an All Black contract review at that juncture, as the culmination of the 2002 Tri-Nations was effectively the end of my first year in charge. We hadn’t negotiated performance bonuses for winning the Tri-Nations, so any bonuses I had written into my 2003 contract were retrospective. It wasn’t a huge amount, about NZ$20 000, but at least it was something.
The Tri-Nations win was our first for a while, and winning that trophy allowed people to regain their faith in us. Some fans may still have been hankering after the great All Blacks whom we had dropped, but for me, playing for the All Blacks was about winning and not about how long a player had worn the shirt. We were starting to create a balanced team culture and work ethic – we were professional, but we also had fun.
The 2002 end-of-year tour featured Test matches against England, France and Wales. We decided to go against tradition and not take the strongest team, which I thought was a brave move. I sat down with the selectors, and we assessed the condition of each player. In some cases surgery was needed, other players needed rehabilitation and yet others required a lengthy period of conditioning.
We also felt that we needed to find the next 12 players for the World Cup squad. Some of the guys were unhappy about being left out of the tour. For instance, Simon Maling had only recently made it into the All Black ranks. Unfortunately, though, some guys just never took advantage of the conditioning opportunity offered them, and consequently missed out on the World Cup. The big Crusaders No. 8, Scott Robinson, fell into that category. I had suggested that he get his knee problem sorted out during the off season but he never did, and it cost him because he struggled in 2003. He is still dirty with me for leaving him out of the World Cup squad, but he should have taken responsibility and had his knee seen to.
I selected a mix that included players such as Tony Woodcock and Carl Hayman. Carl had been selected before, but both he and Tony were still young. Keven Mealamu was selected as a result of his performance in the NPC final. I also brought back Taine Randell. He captained the team against England and did a great job of it. It was also a first opportunity for Rodney So’oialo, who would eventually establish himself as a better No. 8 option than Taine. Initially, though, I thought Rodney, who came from a Sevens background, was too light and lean.
Ben Blair was at fullback, although Christian Cullen came with us and played in the middle Test, against France. In fact, Cully had played for us quite a bit that year. Jonah Lomu was on his last-chance tour and, in truth, was lucky to be selected based on his form in the NPC (later the ITM Cup).
We started the tour at Twickenham, and it turned out to be quite a game. England led 31-14 at one stage but we came back to 31-28, and we were only just held up on the corner in the final minutes. I thought referee Jonathan Kaplan made some dodgy calls on the day, and he subsequently admitted to me that I may have been right. He also said that he was very aware that we were fielding an understrength team on the day.
While we are on the subject of refereeing decisions, prospective coaches have to realise that referees talk among themselves and perceptions are created within the refereeing group. The only way you can alter those perceptions is to react to them appropriately. You need to build relationships with the referees – they are human beings too and have a tough job to perform.
While I was coaching the All Blacks, the Springboks seemed to have communication issues with the referees. They got a lot of yellow cards and were always complaining about dodgy calls. And, later, during Peter de Villiers’s stint as Springbok coach, it was a similar story. Peter was clearly on a different page from the referees and it would seem he didn’t make much of an attempt to bridge the divide. That might ultimately have cost the Boks.
There is conflict with the referees, and there always will be, but you have to find a respectful and constructive way to deal with it. I always felt it was better to give referees an idea of how we were going to play ahead of the game. For example, I might tell them that we were going to be doing a five-plus-one line-out in a particular zone. I would use the opportunity to ask them, ‘By the way, can you keep an eye on the Springbok tendency to do such and such?’ The referees are not cheats. They want to control the game fairly, and it is reassuring for them to have a picture in their heads of what they can expect when they arrive at certain situations.
The way referees are measured has changed since my time with the All Blacks. Then, they were measured on 85 points and they wouldn’t budge on those areas they knew they were going to be measured by. It is foolish for an international coach not to take the time to find out what areas the referees are being assessed on.
It is also very useful to discuss, in detail, how they view things. I remember going to visit referee Peter Marshall before the Test against the Boks in Dunedin in 2003. As I walked into the hotel, Rudolf Straeuli was in the Boks’ team bus parked outside. I think they were heading off to a training session. I had my laptop with me, so it was obvious what I was there for and who I was going to see. The look on Rudolf’s face said, ‘You bloody bastard!’ After that, we were banned from taking laptops to referees’ meetings and showing them video clips of the opposing team’s play and particular aspects they should be aware of.
England were good in the first phase of that Twickenham Test but we hurt them with our kick receipt, and considering how understrength we were, we did well to run them so close. The headlines in the English papers the next day were about how we had given England a big fright. It was interesting how the pendulum had swung, as that was only the seventh time England had beaten the All Blacks, and yet it was clear from the reaction that they thought they would beat us and it was just a question of what the points difference would be.
So England were clearly building towards the World Cup and getting their act together. Jason Robinson was playing for them by that stage and, as I mentioned before, he provided England with the X-factor they never had before. But I still didn’t think they were anything special.
It was my first head-to-head clash with Clive Woodward since I’d left England but, to be honest, I never thought about it much because we had never really been matey. I had just been Woodward’s employee; it was never a friendship. I had a lot more in common with Warren Gatland.
The clash with France the following week in Paris was a stop-start affair and we were fortunate to get a 20-all draw. It was a game marred by yellow cards – one of them to Christian Cullen, who, as it later turned out, was playing in his last Test match. I never used him again after that tour and I also didn’t select him for the final Test of the tour, against Wales in Cardiff the following week.
It seems I will forever be blamed for prematurely ending Cullen’s career, but I don’t think people understand how much pace he had lost because of his knee injury. Cully will forever hold what happened against me, but when he had his pace he had not needed to develop a passing or kicking game. So, when his pace started to go and the evolution of the game started to shore up those areas of defence in which he specialised, he was found wanting. I struggled to see how I could select him ahead of more complete fullbacks such as Ben Blair and Leon MacDonald.
Make no mistake, though, it was a difficult decision for me, and even my son, Daryl, was unhappy with me for a long time for making it. Cullen was Daryl’s hero. He had photos of him all over his room. Daryl just couldn’t understand how I could even consider leaving Cully out of the team. But Leon MacDonald had all of the necessary skills for the position – he could run, pass and kick. Mils Muliaina was also starting to come through. In Cullen, I never got what I wanted from a fullback. In John Hart’s era as coach, he was even moved from fullback to centre at one stage.
After the draw with France, the New Zealand media started to pile on the pressure. They were saying that I shouldn’t have gone overseas with an understrength squad and that it was against the traditions of All Black rugby. But, looking back, I still think it was the right decision, because we unearthed a lot of new talent.
If you look at it position by position, we developed great loosehead and tighthead depth on that tour, with Kees Meeuws playing extremely well. We also brought in Keven Mealamu as a hooker, as well as Andrew Hore, and Ali Williams and Keith Robinson came through as locks.
Rodney So’oialo also began to emerge, and Marty Holah thrived in the openside role on that tour. One of the players we rested was Richie McCaw. I had explained my reasoning to all the players who were rested. Deep down, they had all wanted to play, but they also understood the importance of rest management ahead of the World Cup. We didn’t have a high-performance department overseeing the management of players in New Zealand rugby at the time.
Next, we played Wales on an atrocious pitch at the Millennium Stadium. Steve Hansen was the Welsh coach and Wales thought this would be their best chance to beat the All Blacks. It did take us a while to get on top of them, but then we buried them. In that game, Andrew Mehrtens replaced Carlos Spencer, who had played in his position in the first two Tests. Mehrts played very well, kicking five penalties, and Doug Howlett scored a brace of tries, taking the score to 43-17 in our favour.
It was a sad day, however, because it was the last match of Jonah Lomu’s career. I had a feeling that would be the case before the game had even kicked off, but the decision on how long to keep him on the pitch was taken out of my hands in the end. Lomu started getting blurred vision just before half-time. Afterwards, he struggled with concussion and became violently ill. It wasn’t the kidney ailment, which came to light later: it turned out that he had twisted his intestines.
On the Sunday after the game, I headed to Manchester to catch up with a friend. While there, I read that Jonah was in a London Hospital not far from where I was staying. So when I returned to London, I decided to stop by and see him. On arriving there, I was amazed at the lack of security. Jonah had several tubes running into him where he lay on the hospital bed. His agent and his partner were also there. The situation didn’t look very promising and, as I left, I thought to myself how sad it was that such a great career appeared to be coming to an end on such a low-key and sad note.
The end of that tour also marked the end of Taine Randell’s career as an All Black. He had done a great job as captain against England and I had great admiration for the way he had conducted himself. Taine was an excellent leader and took great pride in it. The reality, though, was that he went missing whenever he was under pressure.
The game evolves continually, and I don’t think players always appreciate that. At the start of the Super Rugby era, Taine was suited to the type of play, as it was loose, but once it started becoming tighter and demanded more grinding, you needed a No. 8 who could drive the ball up. Taine couldn’t do that – he wasn’t that kind of player. I could only consider him for the All Blacks as a No. 8, but during that tour, Rodney So’oialo had impressed us in that position. Although he was a bit light in that early stage of his career, he played with great athleticism and directness.
Doug Howlett was in exceptional form but, with everyone accepting that the great Jonah Lomu’s career was finally over, strength on the wing had become an issue. We were lacking both in pace and the X-factor – with the exception of Howlett, that is. Caleb Ralph was always a great squad member, but he was not an exceptional international-standard wing who could, for instance, break open a World Cup semi-final with a moment of inspired, magical brilliance. The search for a world-class wing would continue until January 2003. Although the tour generally gave me the information I wanted, it was a step back in terms of results after the Tri-Nations win, and I again started to encounter problems with the New Zealand rugby administration. I had a serious one-on-one meeting with Steve Tew, the deputy CEO of the NZRU. I told him that I had heard that two All Blacks had been accused of poor social behaviour, which I had learnt from a third party. I wanted to know why I hadn’t been informed directly. I told him that in future I needed to know if a player had transgressed so that we could decide on a strategy to address and manage the risk.
Also, during the tour Joe McDonnell had used an inhaler (for his asthma), which resulted in him testing positive for drugs before the French Test. This was a good example of the lack of communication between the NZRU and the coaching staff. The International Rugby Board (IRB) had produced new anti-doping documents, of which we were not aware. So we mistakenly completed the old document, which didn’t require Joe to declare his asthma medication.
When we got back from the tour, a lot of pressure was put on me and the medical team for not having followed the correct procedure. Although, on the face of it, we were responsible, the NZRU should have informed us that the IRB’s regulations, as well as the form that had to be filled out, had changed. And there were still too many rumours swirling around, so that I had to ask myself if the NZRU were for us or against us.
Joe was lucky, as we managed to successfully defend him. Had he been found guilty, he would have been slapped with a two-year ban and a fine of NZ$400 000.
After Martin left the group, I had a very strong middle-management team working for me. Apart from Thorpey, there was Michael Anthony, the conditioner, who now heads up conditioning in New Zealand. We had Robbie Deans, who was an experienced coach; Richard Loe was helping out with the scrums; and we also had the services of a top kicking coach, Daryl Halligan, who had been a star in Australia’s National Rugby League. Ross Nesdale was called in to help with the line-outs. Anton Oliver, when he played, would have given every supporter in New Zealand a heart attack with the way he threw in, and I identified it as an area that we needed to work on generally.
Robbie often challenged me, which is what he was there for, in much the same way as I was there to check and balance Clive Woodward when I was with England. I had a great relationship with Robbie, and I respected him both as a person and as a coach. It was a relationship based on mutual respect and friendship.
So, although we went into the 2002 Christmas break facing some scepticism from outside, as a group we were happy with the progress we had made. I appreciated the time off, but I had to get used to being a public figure during my holidays, too. Sometimes that worked in my favour, though, such as when I was on my way to Whangamata for a family holiday. I was speeding along on the open road when a cop approached from the other direction. It was all I needed, as I knew I had been flying. I said to Daryl that it looked like we were being picked up. My son was direct with his response: ‘It’s not we who are being picked up – you are being picked up.’
I had visions of the Sunday newspapers running the story, but the cop was really nice about it once he recognised me and saw my family in the car: ‘Enjoy your holiday. Just remember you have a youngster in the car and [a fine] is probably the last thing you need right now.’
In January 2003, the coaching staff focused on fitness testing, conducting a conditioning overview and introducing structure into our game in preparation for the June Tests. At the camp that we held for that purpose at North Harbour Stadium, on Auckland’s North Shore, we brought in Joe Rokocoko, our X-factor replacement for Jonah Lomu. He had played for the New Zealand Sevens team, and their captain, Eric Rush, and coach, Gordon Tietjens, had spoken highly of him. I had toured with Rushie and we got on well.
We were under no illusion about what we wanted from the players during the camp and we used the opportunity to set the standards for the year ahead. We made it clear that no player would be wrapped in cotton wool during Super Rugby. Places were up for grabs and I encouraged form. We were 80 per cent of the way to finalising the squad, but there were still positions to be filled.
The position of hooker was undecided because, although he will probably disagree, Anton Oliver never really returned to his previous level of form after his Achilles injury. The team dynamics had also changed quite a bit in his absence and Oliver would have had to adjust his approach. When it became apparent that he was probably the third-choice hooker, I knew I couldn’t take him to the World Cup. In my opinion, that position needed to be filled by an eager team player rather than by someone who might get upset when he was not selected for the Test side. I never asked Anton for his thoughts on the matter, and, in retrospect, maybe I should have.
Our first Test of 2003 was against England, right after the Super Rugby season ended. The whole country was gutted when we lost (13-15), and the British media went on a bit about how England had pushed us over with only seven men in their scrum after Dallaglio was carded. But when I checked the video of the match, I noticed that Rodney So’oialo had left our scrum early, thus leaving us a man short too, and I wasn’t sure that Stuart Dickinson had refereed it correctly.
It was harrowing to lose a Test like that at home, but people tend to forget that Justin Marshall was under the posts and about to score a try when he pulled a hamstring. We’d had enough opportunities to win the match, even though we had been understrength. As management, though, we weren’t too concerned about the defeat because we knew we would be a lot stronger by the time the World Cup came round. I always felt we would meet England at the World Cup and set the record straight.
Dan Carter and Mils Muliaina both played their first Test matches in the All Black shirt when we smashed Wales 55-3 in Hamilton the following week. Jerry Collins announced himself as a strong challenger for No. 8 by cutting Colin Charvis in half with a tackle. I was surprised to see that Charvis was able to walk into the post-match function – it was that big a hit.
We then played France in Christchurch and had to work hard for the 31-23 win.
At that stage, with the final build-up to the World Cup looming, we made a special effort for the players. We introduced an updated version of our journey theme, which included a 3-D simulation to enable us to visualise our progression towards our goal. The simulation displayed an image of Uluru/Ayers Rock (to represent Australia), with the Webb Ellis cup standing on it. A bridge connected Ayers Rock with New Zealand, and the selected players stood on that bridge, waiting to cross it and take the cup. The aim was to help the players feel like they were marching towards a goal.
Creating a work ethic was also important, but we had some fun in the process. On the morning after the French Test, with the incoming tour phase of the season behind us, we all played a game of indoor cricket. There had been a good social the night before. I felt that we needed to relax before the Tri-Nations.
As we were leaving for the cricket match, I realised that one of my coaches wasn’t with the group. I won’t mention the guy’s name, but the issue was that he was breaking a team protocol. I asked Thorpey where he was. We were staying at the Heritage in Christchurch; there is another hotel next door. We found him in the foyer of the neighbouring hotel. He had got up for the meeting but was so tired that he had wandered away and fallen asleep there.
The great thing about our team protocol in the build-up to the World Cup was that there was no ‘us and them’ division between management and the playing group, so at the next camp the senior players (Justin Marshall took the lead) ensured that the coach who had fallen asleep was punished for his misdemeanour. The poor man had to run at the large tackle bags. He was hammered afterwards. I don’t know if I have ever seen a guy have to perform so many tackles.
The previous year, a staff member, Andrew Sullivan, who was a terrific analyst, had been late for a meeting and was also ‘punished’ by the senior players. It was Andrew’s first trip with us, and the senior players made him wear swimming shorts in Cardiff, in the freezing cold, and run 10-metre shuttles between drinking a can of Coke and a glass of milk. By the end of it, he was profusely sick, as his stomach had got more and more bloated. He kept having to slide on the ground to complete the drill, and needless to say, the grass and mud were not his friends.
This might all sound a bit strange, but having the staff operating under the same protocols as the players is conducive to a good culture. The players like to have a laugh at their elders. It was not about demeaning anyone, but rather about dealing with human error. For the players, a first offence meant that they would be out of the playing XV; for the second, they were out of the match 22; and, for the third – which meant they clearly hadn’t learnt their lessons – they would be dealt with upstairs. In other words, their future with the team would come under discussion. I must stress that we are not talking about different offences here, but the repetition of the same offence.
Our main focus was to encourage the players to learn. They were young men, after all, and our approach was more about trying to help them change their behaviour. They needed to realise that being a gladiator was worth the sacrifices that had to be made. For a rugby player, the threat of not playing in a game is a much bigger deterrent than a fine.
Clearly, we weren’t lax on discipline, as can be seen from the measures we took to ensure that the players adhered to the protocols. If you were to examine what we were doing structurally within the group, it becomes evident that many of the rumours originated from people on the outside, such as those at the NZRU who couldn’t relate to my methods and were trying to break us down.
Looking back, it may not have counted in my favour that I had an office in Hamilton, where I did much of my work, and only commuted to the Wellington NZRU headquarters every two weeks. In retrospect, perhaps I should not have isolated myself like that and spent more time in Wellington, building relationships.
There was a lot of change going on within the organisation and I admit I should have got to know people better. The previous All Black coaches had tended to spend more time in Wellington than I ever did. You have to work with the people at the NZRU – they are the tentacles of the All Blacks. An All Black manager has to facilitate more than manage, and my second manager did succeed in making my job easier. But, at the time, Thorpey was busy developing new relationships inside the team and the NZRU.
When I look back, it is easy to see how I got marginalised, but what is easy to see now was not easy to see at the time. When you are in the environment, it is more difficult to deal with issues. I was so singularly focused on the team’s performance that I didn’t deal with half the problems I should have dealt with in terms of the structures I operated in.
I communicated through results. If the organisation wasn’t supportive of me, how was I going to explain to the public why I had made so many changes as the All Black coach?
The bottom line was that I was going to have to win the World Cup.