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Failed Foster still up for it

Wednesday 21st May 2008

Staying positive: Chiefs' coach Ian Foster

Ian Foster says he will have no trouble taking enthusiasm into a sixth season as the Chiefs' Super 14 head coach after missing out on another semi-final this year with the Hamilton-based franchise.

This is the twelfth year of Super Rugby and the eleventh time the Chiefs haven't reached the semi-finals, a pitiful return for long-suffering fans.

Every other New Zealand team has made the final at least once and the semi-finals at least four times, those minimum achievements shared by both the Highlanders and Hurricanes.

The benchmark Crusaders finished dead last in the inaugural year of Super 12 in 1996 but have since been to the semi-finals nine times and the final eight times, winning the title six times. The Blues have won three titles from five visits to the semi-finals and four to the final.

In March last year, Foster was recontracted by the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) through to the end of 2009, and while he must now go through a review process it would seem likely that he has at least one more season at the helm of the Chiefs.

He first coached the Chiefs in 2004 when he made the jump from coaching Waikato in the NPC (now the Air New Zealand Cup) and experienced immediate success by getting the team to the Super 12 semi-finals -something they had not achieved before and have not managed since.

"I don't think enthusiasm's ever been a problem,'' Foster told the Waikato Times.

"I love what I do. And part of the freshness and new ideas just comes from, I guess, just brutal honesty within the environment.''

Foster said the review process was a "tough'' but important one over the next two or three weeks to learn all they could from the just completed campaign and apply it to the planning of the next one.

He felt the team were fundamentally in a good place going into 2009, retaining the core of their players.

"I think if I felt this team had failed to reach its potential I'd be disappointed," said Foster.

"But I think we've played some great rugby and it's more of a frustration that we weren't able to continue in these last three rounds.''

The composure to do that under pressure had been lacking and that was something they had to look at but the hard facts were they had lost key experienced players through injury.

There had been some "freakish'' injuries in the last couple of seasons but most were impact injuries suffered in games.

"It is a real frustration with us, but in saying that, it is something you just can't get too down with because it's something that just happens,'' he said.

While injuries also came into play during the early part of the season, as much as the tail-end of it, much of the slow start to this year's Super 14 was put down to the large number of draft players in the squad and a slowness to adjust to the way the breakdowns were being refereed under the experimental law variations (ELVs).

"We drafted seven players and we'd never drafted that many before, so I guess it did take a while to get everything bedded in and settled in," said Foster.

"And we learnt some lessons early, particularly at the breakdown, from the Blues and the Hurricanes.

"I think we've shown we have really stepped up in that area and it became a key strength of ours.

"We put some quality performances on the park but again we haven't put enough quality performances on the park when we're on the road to challenge this championship,'' he added.

On the road, the Chiefs needed all the experience it could get with players who had been there and done that being the key drivers in the team.

"I think we've got a great leadership model functioning but, again, any team that loses four or five front-line players going into the business end of the season is going to struggle in this championship, particularly when the balance of this team is relatively young at this level," said Foster.

Half the Chiefs' squad got back home late on Monday night and the other half, including Foster, only returned until late Tuesday evening.

They had to split their flights to accommodate the Sharks who were trying to get to Sydney for their semi-final against the Waratahs as soon as possible.