Eddie Jones’ warning to New Zealand Rugby who are ‘smelling a bit like Manchester United’ amid power struggle
Japan head coach Eddie Jones and current New Zealand chair David Kirk.
Eddie Jones has warned that it could get far worse before it gets better if New Zealand Rugby and the All Blacks are not careful.
Scott Robertson was axed as the national team head coach last week despite presiding over a 74% win rate, which was better than his predecessor, Ian Foster.
Foster’s departure following the conclusion of the 2023 Rugby World Cup marked the end of 20 years of succession planning, with Robertson the first ‘outsider’ to be named All Blacks boss since Graham Henry in 2004.
Henry passed on the baton to Steve Hansen, who was part of his coaching group, before Foster – an All Blacks assistant under Hansen – took the reins in 2019.
With Robertson’s arrival marking the end of that coaching dynasty, Jones felt it had similarities with Manchester United’s situation when legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired.
Left a ‘power gap’
“To me, on the outside, it’s smelling a little bit like Manchester United. A long period of success, dominant coaching group – Manchester United had Alex Ferguson – and over that period where New Zealand were unbelievable and winning at 85 per cent, it was the Henry, Hansen group,” he said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“It then went to Foster and now all of that has fallen away, so when that group leaves there’s a power gap, and people then fight for that gap because they all want a part of it. It ended up going to Robertson, and it seemed like a difficult situation.”
New Zealand Rugby took the unprecedented step of sacking the head coach by ending Robertson’s tenure midway through his four-year deal.
That fate almost befell Ian Foster in 2022, but he was saved by the players, who backed him when the board were about to let him go.
That was the opposite for the Crusaders legend, with the All Blacks stars having issues with the culture during the 2024 and 2025 Test campaigns.
Jones recounts Ian Foster drama
“Without telling too much, I can remember being in South Africa for that second Test when Foster was playing against South Africa, and he had basically been told he had been sacked before that game,” Jones said.
“The player power there saved his job. They beat South Africa at Ellis Park, turned the tables, they were looking at their fourth loss in a row, and the players stood on the platform and said: ‘No, you’re not going to sack him’.
“The CEO (Mark Robinson) was over there, and it was like it was going to happen. We’ve seen in two situations; in one, they saved an All Blacks coach.
“Ian was two or three years into his tenure there, and now we’ve seen two years into Scott Robertson’s tenure the opposite happening. This is not smelling really good at the moment.
“Maybe [David] Kirk’s going to come in, try to clean the stage a little bit and try to get the ship back on track because I don’t think this is just a Scott Robertson thing – I think this is generally a bigger issue for New Zealand Rugby.”
