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Ian Foster shares plans to 'do the sendoff properly' for departing All Blacks
By Ned Lester
Departing All Blacks coach Ian Foster will spend the coming month saying his final farewells to long-serving All Blacks.
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Foster may also be joined by assistant coaches as they pay their respects to some of New Zealand rugby’s great servants.
After 12 years of dedication to the black jersey, Foster’s relationships with the playing group run deep, and so the 58-year-old has offered up a very Kiwi catchup.
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“I’ve invited a few of them to come around and pitch their tent on the lawn and maybe have a weekend,” Foster told reporters upon landing in Auckland. “I’ll supply the music and a barbecue and they can maybe bring a few drinks.
“I actually might fly around and see a few of them in the next month, just to do the sendoff properly.”
Those years in the coaching box saw Foster contribute to one of the most dominant eras in rugby history, holding an assistant role with the All Blacks for the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
While his tenure as head coach was a mixed bag by New Zealand standards, finishing with a Rugby World Cup silver medal sees Foster leave the All Blacks having improved on the bronze finish Steve Hansen led the team to in 2019.
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“I’m actually feeling really proud. It’s been a tough World Cup and I think everyone knew it was going to be like that. We had a draw that’s been spoken about for a long time.
“I think the whole year we really built to where we wanted to be and I’m really proud of the way the players stuck at it. I thought we got better and better as the tournament went on and that’s really the goal.
“You can’t be any more any more proud of a group of men that when things weren’t going our own way – and I just don’t mean referee calls or cards, I mean like Jordie puts the chip in and it doesn’t quite bounce for Ardie, little things like that that on another day might pop up into a hand and didn’t. And yet, I thought the way that we showed what it means to us was there for everyone to see and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”
The coach won’t buy into any of the narratives around his tenure or debate over the extent of his success, especially in relation to his predecessors.
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“I’ll let you guys do all that. I’m happy.
“I think I got dealt a bunch of cards probably more different than any other All Blacks coach in many different ways; In terms of the governance of the game, the leaders of the game, Covid, a whole lot of different things and all I can say is I did the best I could.”
An unbelievably tumultuous era rivalling John Harts shocker from 1996-1999. Post covid, one could say every single team in world rugby started from scratch such was the disruption.
Losing Reid and a few others leading into the Irish disaster at home was very difficult to digest.
Foster came in with giant question marks hanging all over him. We all knew he was not the mustard and particularly so when you have Razor sweeping all before him.
His choice of coaches were fired and Ryan and Schmidt effectively carried the team post Mbombela because you can bet your bottom dollar, it certainly wasn’t Fozzie producing the tactical forward and back plays that took out SA at Ellis Park and the WC 1/4, semi.
Mediocrity only knows such and of course as much as the team was saved by Ryan and Schmidt, the average Sam Cane, Fozzies other choice, remained.
Cane then delivers the upper cut of all upper cuts to bring the mediocre Foster era to its rightful end. His tackle technique on the greatest ever stage was not shocking, it defies logic, belief and all that. Most certainly, like Fozzie he should never have been there, and like a balloon being blown and let go in mid air, coming to its rightful end, Fozzie and Cane as well, were found out, and came to their rightful end.
This team never in a million years deserved to win the world cup and the win would have covered many, many substandard cracks.
The worthy winners were most certainly France, Ireland by virtue of their consistency and of course the eventual, super worthy winners, SA for going through repeated gladiatorial battles to come away with the cheese.
Rassie Erasmus will go down as an all time great of world cup winning coaches, he clearly knows the formula and he knows how to get the job done. He now is reappointed and begins the legendary process of taking out three world cups in a row, this will be his goal, and, after going through 2019/2023, winning the grand battle v France in a WC 1/4 with every single thing on the line + a hungry home nation on absolute fever pitch - in my view the most pressure cooker match of them all...Rassie found a way. An all time great, maximum respect, from a hardened AB’s man.
We now start from scratch and I have to say, unlike when Fozzie was appointed in 2019 with the accompanying shock and horror, no one wanted this guy.
Scott Robertsons appointment was the most perfect one. This is the guy that should have been there. Ryan is his guy and we will now face a total AB’s rebuild and brand new play blueprint under this outstanding coach. The level of coach that the most successful team across all sports in history deserves.
What makes it even more impressive, Rassie-wise, is the fact that the Boks didn’t play a SINGLE test from the 2019 Final until the the 2021 warm up test against Georgia. Extraordinary achievement to then go and knock the incoming Six Nations hardened Lions off their high horses. Effectively only had two years to prep for 2023. Let’s also not forget that the Boks were ranked 7th in 2017 thanks to worst Springbok coach in history, Allister Coetzee. What Rassie has done, is nothing less than extraordinary and even more so if you factor in that he had 1/10th the financial resources of France, England, Ireland and New Zealand.
Only beat one Top 6 team on the road to the final. Seems like quite an easy draw.
Rankings are irrelevant at RWCs. When will the Northern Hemisphere ever learn? Pro tip: RWCs start at the 1/4 final stage, three test matches, winner takes all.
14 men, two tries to zero. Foster's team can be proud of their dominance in the final after the ‘world champs’ scurried the ball out after refusing to feed the scrum 😂
One of the hardest of course, on the side of death.
Obviously nothing compares to what South Africa had to endure.
Clear your drawer and get out. Like any other job you get fired from.
Didn’t end up getting fired.
Oh dear. The hearts & minds propaganda machine continues.