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'Go home and mow the lawns': Foster in limbo ahead of NZR's review

(Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images)

Ian Foster’s future as head coach of New Zealand remains up in the air on Monday despite the All Blacks‘ impressive turnaround against South Africa in the Rugby Championship over the weekend.

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The All Blacks broke a run of three defeats with a sparkling 35-23 win at Ellis Park on Saturday but New Zealand Rugby (NZR) boss Mark Robinson declined to back Foster to continue in the role.

The team is scheduled to reassemble in Christchurch on Sunday to prepare for their next Test against Argentina.

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“I’m about to hop on a plane and go home and mow the lawns around the pool,” Foster told New Zealand media on Sunday.

“I’ll be given feedback, no doubt, but my expectations are I’m the All Blacks head coach and later in the week I’ll be going to Christchurch and assembling with the team until I’m told anything different.”

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New Zealand media had speculated Foster would be sacked and replaced by Crusaders coach Scott Robertson if the All Blacks had slumped to another defeat in Johannesburg.

Foster’s former assistant coaches John Plumtree and Brad Mooar were removed after the Ireland series defeat last month despite having re-signed through to the 2023 World Cup.

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Robinson said NZR would review the South Africa tour and confirmed the governing body’s board would meet this week.

“We believe we know where we stand and just have to work through it,” Robinson said.

“There will be a board meeting at some stage … The board is ultimately responsible for the appointment of the coach. That’s to be determined in terms of timing.

“We’ll be making no further comment until that time which is likely to be the middle to latter part of this week.”

Foster appeared to have the backing of his players, with powerhouse loose forward Ardie Savea dedicating the win to the embattled coach.

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J
JW 23 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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