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From fever pitch to a few laughs

Andrew Voerman

The first clue was that there were three seats instead of two behind the table at New Zealand Rugby’s office on the fringes of downtown Auckland.

A month of fevered debate about Ian Foster’s tenability as All Blacks coach was about to come to a head, in a small room dominated by the media pack.

It was a backhim-or-sack-him moment and chief executive Mark Robinson and board chairman Stewart Mitchell were due to announce which way they had gone.

But would they be joined by Foster, or did they already have plan B, his replacement, ready and waiting to take centre stage?

Some of the reporting and speculation over the previous four weeks, since the defeat to Ireland in Wellington on July 16, had suggested there was, in the form of Crusaders boss Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson.

But at 2.30pm yesterday, it was Foster who walked in the door with Mitchell and Robinson, and it quickly became clear that he was safe in his job until the end of next year’s Rugby World Cup in France.

The All Blacks’ win over the Springboks at Ellis Park at the weekend helped keep him there, as did the support of senior players, and another coaching rejig, this time involving a larger role for Joe Schmidt.

But it took someone’s smart watch going off in the audience for him to crack his first smile.

Later, when Robinson was asked about the relationship between the All Blacks ‘‘unit’’ and NZR, he moved to put his arm around the chief executive, a gesture which prompted a few laughs, seeing how they appeared to be singing from different song sheets as recently as Sunday. Another light moment came when Foster took issue with the suggestion that the events of the past month could even be called a debate: ‘‘It seemed to be a bit more onesided’’.

He was being asked how his family had coped with seeing him strung up over the past month and said they were ‘‘great’’

‘‘Thank you for asking. I’d have to say you’ve probably lost a couple of viewers or readers . . . but that’s life for you I guess.’’

The heartiest laugh of the 40-minute press conference followed that last rejoinder and the relationship between Foster and the media will be one to watch over the next 14 months, especially if results aren’t always as good as the one last weekend.

Sport

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2022-08-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/282153590068874

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