All Blacks losses hang heavy over the year but sacking Scott Robertson isn’t the answer
Sunday, 23 November 2025
ANALYSIS: Scott Robertson’s assessment after the 52-26 win against Wales that the All Blacks were only “fine margins” away from the world’s best this year shows they need a strong new voice to challenge the current thinking.
A historic loss to the Springboks, a flattering 29-23 scoreline against Argentina and a 33-19 defeat to England are all on the All Blacks record this year: fine margins they are not.
Robertson is a natural optimist of course, but someone needs to have a quiet word in his ear that overly upbeat claims only serve to antagonise the fan base.
The performance against Wales did include some genuine areas of improvement, with Will Jordan superb under the high ball, but Wales aren’t a top 10 team at the moment and the test didn’t have anything like the intensity of the Ireland-South Africa game that followed.
However, the idea that Robertson and his assistant coaches Scott Hansen and Jason Ryan should be sacked should be taken off the table.
Axing them would provide a sugar rush, but ultimately it would be a chaotic response to the bigger challenges facing New Zealand Rugby and come with no guarantee that their replacements would deliver any better outcomes.
Jamie Joseph has been put forward a potential successor but he in fact only proves the point that a coach operates within certain constraints.
Joseph collected the wooden spoon with the Highlanders this year. It doesn’t make him a dud coach, it just highlights the woeful spread of talent in Super Rugby and the virtual Chief-Crusaders duopoly, one of the systemic issues that is hurting the All Blacks.
Robertson himself benefited from this, but everyone is now seeing that all those titles at the Crusaders reflected that club’s clear advantage in squad strength rather than his Messianic touch as a coach.
But he is now in a job that is a a completely different scale in terms of difficulty level - not least the fact he doesn’t start every year in the knowledge he as a better squad than everyone else.
The increase in competitiveness in test rugby has been enormous over the past decade: hence the frequent observation that there wouldn’t be too many All Blacks in a current World XV.
South Africa had three players nominated in the four-strong group for World Rugby player of the year, and that accurately reflects their current dominance.
You could certainly mount an argument that Robertson isn’t getting the most out of his current talent, but the idea of automatic All Blacks superiority has been disproved by many results going back at least six years - the one-sided Rugby World Cup semifinal loss to England in 2019 confirming this is an issue that pre-dates Robertson by some time.
If the All Blacks are to return to the summit, they will have to develop a cadre of players who are elite in the disciplines that so often decide tests in the way the game is currently officiated - scrummaging, tactical kicking, high-ball expertise, goalkicking and winning collisions.
That is no quick fix, especially when Super Rugby Pacific is contested between New Zealanders, Australians and Fijians, whose natural strengths have been negated by virtually every World Rugby directive for a decade.