The Man in the Middle
The Razor era finally begins, PLUS: A lament for alma mater Sunday News in The Week That Was, and sports galore(!) in The Weekend That Will Be
Scott Robertson named his first All Black squad last week; yesterday he named his first match-day 23.
There were a few points of minor intrigue, such as who would start at halfback and fullback, but little to carry a 100-point bold headline. The biggest talking point was that of a semantic nature: Can you “drop someone to the bench” as the elder Barrett’s selection in the No 23 jersey has been described, if you’ve never picked them to start in the first place?
Instead of the minutiae of the selections and strategy to face England, it is more useful at this point to float some big-picture ideas and concepts we’d like to see over the next two seasons. To aid in this, I’ve gone to some of my favourite rugby thinkers. Here’s three for starters:
On-field Innovation
One thing that stood out at the RWC was how homogenised the game had become at the pointy end, especially in pressure situations. Teams might utilise long and short kicking games in slightly different ways in different areas of the pitch, but if rugby coaches are being honest, they’d admit the game has become two-dimensional. Squeeze the opposition into parts of the field they’re not comfortable, force mistakes and then either kick penalties or launch attacks from structured set-piece.
As a former colleague said: “Just play with energy and enthusiasm - like the Crusaders did under him. You always felt you were watching a well-coached team that played like they had a licence to express themselves. That would be nice.”
Seeing the Blues steamroll through Super Rugby using one-out crash and bash was great for the revival of rugby in Auckland, but not terribly nourishing for the soul. Rugby is a game that used to distinguish itself from the other code by highlighting the myriad possibilities available at every stage and phase of the game, and no team was better than New Zealand at finding the space among all the wrinkles.
Hand on heart, can we say that now?
Public engagement
From a good, keen bloke who operates among rugby’s elite on a daily basis: “It’s actually about engagement, connection and openness. That’s with fans, with media and broadcasters. I want Razor to make those New Zealanders who have drifted away fall back in love with the All Blacks and that doesn’t necessarily have to be by beating everyone all the time.”
To that end, the three-part series Razor, which screened over the past month, was a good sign. Robertson was personable and relatable. It was good content. The only problem — and this is no criticism of either the network or the producers — is that it was a Sky product. Sky subscribers are, largely, an already captured audience (though I guess the aim of the Sky Open channel is to act as a gateway drug for recreational sports viewers yet to be converted to addicts).
Also, public engagement has to be wider than the focus being on a single charismatic leader. The willingness to offer more has to permeate into every area of the team, which leads to…
Distinguishing between mystique and condescension
Silver Lake might have bought a stake in the mystique, but they have also quickly learned that it doesn’t help sell subscriptions. We don’t need to know what the ABs had for breakfast, though when Sanitarium pays they’re happy enough to divulge Weet-Bix counts, but if you’re moving into the capricious world of all-access streaming, you can’t censor the life out of it. Gregor Paul’s ($) summation of In Their Own Words was bang on the money.
It comes with the high production values, access to exclusive footage and the down-the-barrel, one-person interviews that have proven such a successful formula for other sports… But what In Their Own Words doesn’t have is any drama – not the authentic kind where players and coaches delve into the real issues that they faced, speak with no inhibition and produce a series that is genuinely compelling because it reveals storylines to the audience about which they had no idea.
Instead, it glosses over the truly sticky things like the coaching team finding out six months before the tournament that they wouldn’t be retained after it…. NZR seemingly doesn’t have the appetite to air its dirty laundry on camera [and] that is a sign it doesn’t fully understand what it has got itself into by wanting to commercialise content and rebrand the All Blacks.
It might not just be NZR reluctant to air dirty laundry as the Players’ Association are also understood to be heavy-handed when it comes to protecting “legacy” content. Whoever, whatever — they’ve tried to be half-pregnant and in doing so it just feels like they’re either talking down to you or are being slightly dishonest: “Sign up and watch NZR+ as we pull back the curtain to reveal… a set of venetian blinds.”
Back to more immediate matters…
There’s a test this Saturday! Against England! It’s been a while!
The Telegraph ($) seems quite disoriented by the warmish welcome.
Steve Borthwick’s England team have landed in New Zealand at a time when the tectonic plates are shifting in the Land of the Long White Cloud. There is a new coach in Scott Robertson, a new captain in Scott Barrett and a new apprehensiveness about the usually cocksure All Blacks.
So instead of disregard and disdain — 10 years ago Brodie Retallick could not name a single England player — the All Blacks are now taking to killing England with kindness ahead of the opening test in Dunedin on Saturday. In contrast to the gargoyles of 2003, Scott Hansen, the assistant New Zealand coach, took to repeatedly calling England “beautiful”.
New Zealand v England, Dunedin, tomorrow 7.05pm, SS 1
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The Guardian’s Robert Kitson has been flitting productively around the country, including sitting down for a chat with Campbell Johnstone. I enjoyed these paragraphs.
While an active player, though, Johnstone felt unable to [come out as gay]. Some of us still recall the day he was put up for an impromptu post-training chat with a few of the travelling British media before the 2005 Lions series. The man from the Independent heroically tried to ask him about scrummaging but it ranked among the most monosyllabic rugby interviews of all time. Little did we know the reason why. “So many friends I played with will know about my ‘stranger danger’ policy,” says Johnstone, chuckling at the memory.
“We all laugh about it now but it was also a defence mechanism. I was genuinely quite a shy, private person but that was compounded by what I was trying to hide.”
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Check your inboxes for a Sunday Special following the 1st test of a new era. A busy test weekend including Wales v Australia and South Africa v Ireland will be picked apart (as might be a few ratings).