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Ronan O'Gara tips Scott Robertson for higher honours and hints at future

Ronan O'Gara. Photo / Getty Images

Crusaders assistant coach Ronan O’Gara has made his pick for Steve Hansen’s successor after the latter announced he would be stepping away from his role after next year’s Rugby World Cup.

Robertson, off-contract with the Crusaders at the end of next year, last month told The New Zealand Herald he was interested in the top job, and again reiterated that to Stuff after Hansen’s announcement on Friday.

“Of course, yeah. I think it will definitely happen, there’s no doubt it,” O’Gara told Stuff in regards to Robertson’s All Black prospects.

“He’s made of the right stuff, Razor. He’s got great energy, charisma, ideas. He’s a leader of men. Yeah, it will happen.”

Should Robertson join the All Blacks or head elsewhere once his contract with the Crusaders ends, O’Gara would be interesting in assuming the top job in Christchurch.

“Of course I would, yeah,” O’Gara said.  “But it’s all ifs and buts. I don’t deal in ifs and buts.”

“I know what I’m doing for this campaign and that’s all that bothers and interests me. I’m happy doing what I’m doing. It’s ifs and buts for Razor. But he was the guy that gave me the break here. Who knows, I could go where ever he goes next.”

All four Crusaders coaches are off-contract after the upcoming season, with assistant coach Brad Mooar set to join Scarlets in 2020.

Despite Robertson’s relative infancy in the coaching realm, O’Gara feels he would be ready to step up to the head role with the All Blacks.

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Steve Hansen also touched on the importance of experience when New Zealand Rugby begin their search for a new head coach, and felt that it wasn’t as necessary as some would be led to believe.

“I think that’s probably misguided,” O’Gara said in regards to Robertson’s readiness to coach the All Blacks. “I think he’s good at rugby, very good at rugby. With the level of detail required now days to succeed in the coaching world, you need to be on top of a lot of areas and he is on top of a lot of areas.”

“He’s working with very capable players, no doubt about it. But at the same time, someone has to stratergise everything, and organise and run the show, and he does that well.

“It’s a pleasure working with him. He gets the best out of his players, he gets the best out of us as a coaching group, he gets the best out of me. I enjoy going into Rugby Park every day to see him.”

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Flankly 2 minutes ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 11 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 40 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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