Lucky Maree
After the brilliant All Black victory over the Springboks over the weekend, it is no surprise that New Zealand Rugby (NZR) have confirmed Ian Foster as coach up to and including the World Cup.
It is an indication of the NZR’s decision-making process that they kept the poor man in limbo until Wednesday night before confirming his role. Their indecisive decision-making about the entire issue has been so laborious as to be laughable.
Everybody knew that, after the performance the All Blacks delivered at Emirates Airline Park over the weekend, that it would take rugby balls of steel to fire the coach, which NZR clearly doesn’t have.
Failure always has some highlights on the road to disaster – and beating the Springboks was a massive highlight.
It is interesting that NZR have specified they will keep Foster until the World Cup and did not call for success in the remaining matches in the Rugby Championship.
It is fair to say that South Africa and New Zealand are the teams to beat in this year’s competition and those two matches have resulted in a 1-1 draw.
But what if the All Blacks play badly against Argentina or Australia? One assumes NZR have made their decision regardless of the outcome of their following four matches.
As it happens, the first match of the World Cup is between two of the absolute favourites: New Zealand and France on 8 September 2023 – just about a year from now – when many questions will be answered.
It seems like a long, long time to wait, but worth waiting for nonetheless.
Image source: @JapanTimes
