Ronan O'Gara: Razor’s fall proves nobody is safe in modern test rugby
Ronan O'Gara and Scott Robertson (L-R) look on during a Crusaders Super Rugby Captain's Run at Orangetheory Stadium on June 20, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Picture: Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images
WHEN the phone rang a second time, I knew it was serious. Razor doesn’t call twice. The bombshell from New Zealand on Wednesday may just have changed the game, and not in a good way. The All Blacks have sacked a head coach for the first time, one with 20 wins from 27 test matches, 10 of 13 last year. It’s hardly a record worth throwing a man in chains down the plughole for. Honestly, I’m stunned. Like football, the length of time a coach gets today to set out his stall could be measured with an egg-timer.
The NZRU chairman David Kirk says there was no player influence in this decision and we take him at his word, but that this can happen without a figurehead at the NZRU, in the wake of CEO Mark Robinson’s decision to step down at the tail end of last year, is instructive. Someone to stand up and say hold on here.
Razor’s calling card is his personal connection with people so any issues he had with Ardie Savea or any All Black is something he would unquestionably have ironed out. I wonder in a week’s time the chairman and the executive of the NRZU wake up and feel that wrong-decision sickness in the pit of their stomach? What have we done here?
I’m biased because I overrate him as a coach and a human. He transformed me, and now I’ve nearly lost hope because if that is what test rugby has become, what are we doing?
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I can say without fear of contradiction from my years as a player in professional rugby how important in terms of direction the boss man is - Garrett Fitzgerald at Munster, Philip Browne at the IRFU. And as a coach, from the likes of Pierre Venayre here in La Rochelle. For the here and now, the most important person on the performance side is the manager/head coach. But for the direction of the club/country in the medium and long-term it’s the CEO. In those moments when I feared everything can explode or fall apart in a horrible way, there was one or two reassuring words from a CEO that will always stay with me.
With Philip Browne in Lansdowne Road, you knew talking to him over a contract negotiation that he was sincere in how he conversed. How he looked at you. Do they really want to keep you or are they reluctantly giving you a deal? The coaching equivalent is ‘I can’t wait for you to start this weekend’ against ‘Oh Christ I have reservations about this guy.’ That comes across. That is so important that you set people up to succeed and the CEO has a key role in that.
Garrett Fitzgerald was a serious stabiliser. The moment you were getting the melon, as they say here, (the big head), Garrett would be around the corner with Jerry Holland, telling you to pipe down and cop yourself on. Donal Lenihan for Ireland the same. They’d sit you down.
With the powder keg pressure an All Black coach is under, the steady hand of a strong chief executive is fundamental. The hatchet job on Razor bears the hallmarks of a country where the pre-eminent sport has a disproportionate influence on the national mood. Then you’ve the whole south island v north island, small city v big city, Christchurch v Auckland, different cultures and values. A serial winner with the Crusaders Razor may have been, but he wasn’t ten minutes in the hottest seat in New Zealand before naysayers were wondering whether his backside had enough hide for the big chair.
Did the job change him? I can’t be sure, but I’d hope not. Razor was never about box kicks and kicking data. An international gig is different but the players aren’t. The front row we have in La Rochelle of Reda Wardi, Pierre Bourgarit and Uini Atonio could as easily be the front row for France. They don’t become different people playing for their country in terms of how you have to manage and coach them. It’s a different game if you make it different. It’s as simple or as complicated as you want it to be but it’s the same person in a different coloured jersey.
If international coaching is an aspiration of mine, then of course I’d consider any such approach. After what happened to Razor this week, anything and everything is possible but realistically, it’s the longest of longshots. Maybe at some stage the NZRU might wonder whether taking the weight of the world off the shoulders of a native son would be an idea but we shouldn’t hold our breath.
Ambition is a good thing, though. If you lose that self-belief then, seriously, what are we at? There’s no point going to work every day.
New Zealand have dominated world rugby for a century but now South Africa are the market leaders. The 43-10 Springbok win in Wellington last year was a bigger blow than many imagine, and certainly more volcanic than the defeat in Argentina. If Razor was fired after the Boks loss one could almost understand it on a human, emotional level. But for an internal audit of the season to find unanimity that the head coach was no longer the man to lead the All Blacks is a head-scratcher. Razor has always been a solution-based coach and always able to make it work with the people around him.
For it to dominate my thoughts yesterday says something. Last Saturday at the Aviva Stadium was the first time we saw the fruits of the hard yards La Rochelle have been putting in below the line over the past 18 months. It hasn’t been an easy time.
It’s important we saw that, albeit with frustrating errors that killed us, because as readers here will know, I was beginning to wonder if there was an upturn coming for all our work. Or was the project dying before our eyes? Once you get a performance - again not forgetting our lack of composure or capacity to finish walk-ins - but in terms of caring and people playing for each other and showing heart, it was exceptional. Once you have that, you can work on everything else.
You have to understand that for the last season and a half, it’s been pure hell. I’m not exaggerating. We can speak in flowery terms about the project and the future ‘til we are blue in the face but right now I can’t think beyond Harlequins in the Champions Cup this weekend. I hope the message has been logged, in the staff and the players' minds, because the Leinster effort could just as easily be a one-off. Quins are going poorly domestically, but they will come fully loaded, they have Marcus Smith, they will get a few bounces of the ball and they will cause trouble for us. Now, how will we respond this time?
We must also recognise that Leinster had half a team last week. They had no Furlong, Porter, Baird, Snyman, Lowe, Keenan and Ringrose. We were brutal for 17 minutes but no one can doubt we gifted them the win. Five of our 26 kicks were accurate, and with all the positive statistics in our favour, you are not going to beat Leinster with all the open goals we left behind. If we had gone more than seven ahead, the French would have found another mood and we could have been out of sight.
We have been working on Simeli Daunivucu as a project for the better part of two years and at times he’d break your heart. But he keeps at it, he’s French Fijian, so he has loads of upside to his game, but to say we were expecting that performance would be an outright lie. Now let’s see what he and we produce on Sunday.
The project has a big future, but at ground level, we don’t have that broad vista. That’s the job of the CEOs. That’s where they need to excel. No one has done more for me in coaching than Scott Robertson. As a friend and a mentor too. Whether the executive has done New Zealand rugby a great disservice remains to be seen. But they certainly belittled a great man.
