Scott Robertson promises full All Blacks review to tackle the thorny third-quarter blues

Monday, 17 November 2025

A clearly troubled Scott Robertson has conceded there will be a full and comprehensive review of a second straight All Blacks test season on his watch where the team has fallen well short of its own expectations.

In the wake of the weekend’s 33-19 defeat to England at Twickenham, where the All Blacks suffered another of those third-quarter implosions they have become synonymous with, Robertson was resigned to another off-season of contemplation, rumination and just a little desolation.

Under the second-year coach, the All Blacks fell short in their goal of reclaiming the Rugby Championship, pipped by the Springboks once again, and now they have also become the first New Zealand team in the professional era to fail in their shot at a Grand Slam of the four Home Unions.

The All Blacks lost four times in Robertson’s first year in charge, and have made only a marginal improvement this year, dropping three of their 12 tests thus far, with just Sunday’s (NZT) season finale against an out-of-sorts Wales at the Principality Stadium to come.

The 2025 losses have all involved notable second-half collapses as Robertson’s All Blacks appear to have made little or no progress in year two. They were upset 29-23 by the Pumas in Buenos Aires, smashed 43-10 in a record humbling by the Boks in Wellington and last weekend blew a 12-0 lead and conceded 25 straight points at one stage to a rampant England outfit.

Robertson, to his credit, fronted on a Monday (NZT) zoom call with New Zealand media, having just arrived in Cardiff from what would have been a difficult bus trip from London. He did his best to answer some probing questions around next steps and accountability.

Asked whether common factors, such as second-half collapses, high-ball issues, discipline problems, poor decision-making and a lack of leadership, from the three defeats demanded a “full reset” in the national squad, Robertson searched hard for an adequate response.

“We do anyway,” he said of a thorough review process which would unfold in the wake of the tour closer. “We look at every part of our game. We look at ourselves as experts, how we’re teaching and how we’re doing. People do it for us externally and internally.

“There are lots of fine margins and nuances you don’t see – the relationship stuff, the leadership. People learn on the job and grow. The plain fact is we’ve got to get that third-quarter part right. I’ve had a project going for a long time, but we just haven’t been able to get those gains we need. We’ll definitely be looking at the end of this.”

The harsh truth is the All Blacks, probably since Sir Steve Hansen stepped aside, have slipped back to the pack in international rugby. Defeats have come all too regularly under both Ian Foster and Robertson, including many by disconcerting margins, including this year’s demoralising, record-shattering loss to the South Africans in the capital.

One stat doing the rounds in the wake of the 14-point defeat to England was this one: in no decade previously in their history had the All Blacks suffered more than two defeats by 14 points or more. In the 2020s they have now had six. No less than 40% of their total defeats by that two-score margin or more have occurred in the last five years.

Aked his message to fans at the halfway point of the World Cup cycle, Robertson said: ‘’’We’ve got a team that cares deeply about the black jersey. We’ll work tirelessly to be warriors on the field and champions off it. That’s a really important part of it.

“We haven’t quite got the results we’ve worked really hard for. We feel it, just like they do. Rest assured we’re doing everything we can. It’s there. We’ve got an incredible group of players who compete hard each week, and we’ve got 18 months.”

The coach also stumbled a little when asked the big lesson from the England defeat.

“Gimme a week,” he responded. “We’ll get the Wales game out of the way. Just the lost opportunity. That’s the frst thing that comes to my mind. We’d prepared well, trained well, and the two games before set us up really well. Not executing that part stings you. Efforts were high but we didn’t quite execute or manage the game as we’d planned.”

Robertson has already lost one assistant coch (Leon MacDonald) since stepping into the role, and sheds another, Jason Holland, once this tour wraps up. But he says he has full faith in his setup.

“Of course I do. We pick these guys, we know we’ve got a group with incredible work ethic, and we’re experienced enough to understand what test footy is all about. We spend a lot of time making sure players get as much as we can into them that’s required for test level. We’ll look at it again, for sure.”