He was neck deep in Covid uncertainty, he didn't have the backing of the country. This season Foster has found himself in a position where he lacked a solid roster of genuine superstars. The World Cup, like it or not, was the true measure of global rugby pre-eminence. No-one cares how good the All Blacks were if they didn't bring home Bill. 1987 to 2011 is a long time to play perennial pretender. Yet like clockwork, the team dropped their bundle when it really mattered. There was a time when the national side were peerless in the down cycle of the Rugby World Cup. Ian Foster's management has shown he has the bigger World Cup picture in mind. Ian Foster would take the throne even though the barbarian at the gate, Scott Robertson, was riding high on extraordinary Super Rugby results and effervescent public support. A carefully planned and managed power transition would ensure that 2019 was a judder bar for the All Blacks juggernaut, not a dead end. To many, an act of hubris saw New Zealand Rugby carry on with their succession plan, which had worked a treat since 2011. We'd had a good run, let's reset with a new coach and the rightful order will be restored. Stretching back to the 2011 World Cup campaign, we enjoyed a freakish run of results, so comfortable we were in our supporters' skins, that when the party stopped at the semifinal stage of the 2019 event, in a rare show of altruism, All Black fans ceded that the loss to the English was good for the game.
Our want to entertain, to run the ball from anywhere and often score, was an example of the New Zealand way, leaving the grind of northern hemisphere rugby in the rear-view mirror.
#EA CRICKET 2015 FULL#
The arrogance of the Kiwi rugby supporter was in full bloom. This, at the time, was packaged as boring. The All Blacks had been World Cup holders for consecutive cycles, the number one ranked team globally for what seemed an age, a coach at the top of his game, a group of 'once in a generation' players. Who remembers 2015/16, when the talkback lines ran hot around the tedium of watching the All Blacks dominate the world?
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