All Blacks legend: ‘The jury is still out on Scott Robertson’s selectors and coaches’
Murray Mexted is still on the fence about Scott Robertson's coaching staff. (Photos by James Foy/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire and Kerry Marshall/Photosport/AP)
All Blacks great Murray Mexted is still on the fence about Scott Robertson’s coaching staff as he struggles to come to terms with their selections.
After going unbeaten in the July internationals, Robertson suffered a first defeat in his Rugby Championship debut, falling to Argentina before emphatically bouncing back against the same opposition at Eden Park a week later.
While the battering of Los Pumas in Auckland has gone some way in easing concerns of a potential All Blacks downfall, Mexted still has his doubts about the size of Robertson’s coaching team and the influence they have on selection.
Are there too many All Blacks coaches?
Jason Ryan, Leon MacDonald, Scott Hansen, Tamati Ellison and Jason Holland were all unveiled as Robertson’s assistants last year with Corey Flynn and David Hill joining as specialist coaches before the Test season commenced.
Mexted, who played 34 Tests for the All Blacks, believes that Robertson has a tough job in managing all the voices in the camp, particularly with the pressure that comes with being the head coach.
“The jury is still out. I’ve been sitting and waiting patiently to work out what they’re doing as far as the group of selectors and coaches,” the ex-back-rower told The Platform NZ.
“There are as many coaches as there are letters in the alphabet and you’d have to say that’s pretty hard to manage for a head coach who’s also under the pressure of performing in front of a very educated audience.
“In New Zealand, we love our rugby and we know our rugby and the general man in the street understands it, so he is under the microscope.”
Mexted believes that there needs to be a shift in the mindset of the playing squad and backs Robertson to make that change after taking some hard lessons in the defeat to Argentina.
“It’s been a hard job hasn’t it and that first Test against Argentina was a lesson so still I haven’t formed an opinion yet on whether these
guys have got it under control,” he added.
“I have great confidence in Razor having the ability to bring everybody together and to be fighting for the same thing, performing at their best and dying for the cause, which is what you’ve got to be like if you want to win Test matches against the big boys.
“I’d say that Robertson is the best in the business at that. Whether they’ve got the balance right as far as selectors and whether the selectors have got a voice or too big a voice I don’t know, none of us know that, only those in the camp know that.
“They all got a bit of a lesson [from Argentina] and I’m laughing now but I wasn’t laughing when I was watching that, I was feeling bloody sorry for him because what could he say, they got bloody beaten in New Zealand.”
“I got a hell of a fright”
The former forward said that he was left perplexed by the changes the coaching staff made following the loss to Argentina.
In Wellington, the performances of Los Pumas’ back-five steered them to victory with Pablo Matera, Marcos Kremer and Juan Martin Gonzalez producing immense shifts, comfortably outshining their All Black counterparts.
Robertson was pragmatic in response and resisted the urge to make changes, with the majority of the tweaks taking place in the backline as Will Jordan, Rieko Ioane and Caleb Clarke were promoted to the starting XV.
Tamaiti Williams’ inclusion at loosehead prop was the only change in the pack with Ethan de Groot ruled out through injury while ex-captain Sam Cane was added to the bench.
“Of course, the Argentinians got strength from that first Test and they thought ‘We can beat these guys, they are beatable’, they started to believe and thank goodness we knocked that belief out of them in the first 20 minutes of the second Test,” Mexted said.
“It was a great comeback nut I must say when they announced the second Test team, I got a hell of a fright because we got stuffed up front in Test one and they didn’t change anyone up front – one injury change – but they picked the same pack and changed the outside backs – so I was thinking ‘do you guys know what you are doing, we got beaten up front?’
“Anyway, they proved the point, so they obviously know what they are doing in that regard but the jury’s still out for me, I’ll sit, watch and
listen, I love this part of the game, it’s a complex game it’s not a simplistic game and you got to get it all right.”
