Eddie Jones’ big questions for New Zealand Rugby and All Blacks stars over Scott Robertson exit as ‘key things’ not revealed
New Zealand Rugby chair David Kirk and former chief executive Mark Robinson.
Former Wallabies and England boss Eddie Jones believes that we don’t really know the true reasons for Scott Robertson’s departure as All Blacks boss.
New Zealand Rugby chair David Kirk made it clear they were not happy with the current “trajectory” of the team under the Crusaders legend.
There were also reports of player dissatisfaction after an internal review following the All Blacks’ underwhelming 2025 campaign.
Kirk dismissed claims that there was a revolt from senior players, but there must have been some sort of issue between them and Robertson for the head coach to get the boot.
Why wasn’t Robertson ‘trusted’?
They have not been officially disclosed, however, and Jones insists that there needs to be more clarity from those at the top.
“The implication is that the senior players didn’t trust the coaching team… based on? What didn’t they trust them on?” he said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“Everything else they want to tell you, they tell you, but they don’t tell you what the crucial point is. If it’s not based on winning success, which it’s not, and it’s based on the fact that the senior players don’t trust the coaching team, what didn’t they trust them in?
“There’s been no mention of that. Was it in terms of selection? Was it in terms of who’s the captain? Was it in terms of the way they’re playing? Was it in terms of the way they train? What was it?
“I once had a season review, I made one comment to a player that he didn’t like, which can sometimes happen, and that then became the contention of, ‘right, is he coaching up to standard?’
“For me, I reckon that’s the key thing that should be discussed.”
Another thing to note about this situation is NZR are themselves in a state of flux following the departure of chief executive Mark Robinson, while Kirk himself is also a relatively recent appointment.
“The second thing is you’ve either got a public, up front chairman and a quiet CEO, and maybe that’s why the CEO left because he could see the writing on the wall – the chairman was going to take over,” Jones said.
“He’s quite entitled to do that if he wants to. David Kirk, as we know, has got a track record of huge success in business. Obviously a fantastic rugby player himself, been involved in administration of rugby, so there’s probably no better person to read New Zealand rugby now.”
Jones’ experience of internal reviews
Jones also warned against making decisions solely based on end-of-season reviews after detailing his own experience earlier in his career.
“Every team, now generally speaking, does an anonymous team survey at the end of the season. Any disgruntled player now, they can take it into that survey,” he added.
“I can remember at the Brumbies, I was a young coach coming through, and they did a survey in the first year where we came 10th.
“We were terrible, and we didn’t do anything to change what had been done before; we basically ran with the model that was there, which had been successful.
“Next year, we changed it to train much harder, had a different approach to the game, players became a lot more accountable, we were more demanding of them.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
“I remember the survey came back and everything was s***, but we came fifth and that was on the way to becoming champions. You’ve got to be careful about these things, particularly anonymous surveys.
“I’m sure the high-performance team that looked at it from a New Zealand point of view looked at it very thoroughly and looked at all of that, but you do have to be careful on the surface of what you get back from surveys like that.”
READ MORE: All Blacks great: Scott Robertson was ‘backed into a corner’ by New Zealand Rugby
