Bad blood between Schmidt and Robertson adds even more spice to Bledisloe

2 hours ago 1

This compelling Rugby Championship barely needs more spice, but on the cusp of back-to-back Bledisloe Cup clashes, it’s got a sprinkling in the form of the recent history between Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt and All Blacks coach Scott Robertson.

Schmidt doesn’t play games in the media and avoids playing the man, but he is quoted in former All Blacks coach Ian Foster’s book Leading Under Pressure in a way that shows a degree of disdain for Robertson’s conduct before the Rugby World Cup.

“A big part of it was about integrity,” Schmidt is quoted as saying. “The pressure that was being exerted was contributed to by not just New Zealand Rugby, but people aiming up at ‘Fozzie’ [Foster].

“There was a podcast – with Jim Hamilton and Scott Robertson. That’s in the public domain. That was a pressure point and an advertisement that he [Robertson] wanted to win the World Cup with two different teams.

“And he [Robertson] applied pressure by starting an interview with ‘Bula’ when there was talk of the Fijian job being open. That was happening in the foreground, not the background. That was the tip of the iceberg, and it was bloody awkward for Foz.”

Robertson did the podcast with Hamilton in early December 2022, when speculation was mounting that NZ Rugby was about to go early with the appointment of the next All Blacks coach, before the World Cup in France.

The “Bula” comment came three months later, after Robertson had been linked to the Fiji job, and about a month before he was unveiled as the next All Blacks coach.

Foster has been forthright in his belief that Robertson, whose reputation was soaring at the time, was effectively trying to force NZ Rugby into appointing him before the World Cup to stop him leaving New Zealand for another job.

Further, Foster believed that an early appointment would be a distraction to the All Blacks’ campaign – with the implication that Robertson was putting his own ambitions ahead of the team.

Rightly or wrongly, that’s what Foster believed. And Schmidt, who was Foster’s right-hand man inside the All Blacks set-up at the time, was clearly of the same view.

Given Schmidt’s cautious approach to public relations, it’s a surprise the quote even made it to print – but there it is, on page 229 of Foster’s book, sitting like a little time bomb that was always going to detonate once Schmidt accepted the Wallabies job.

Former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt took on a beefed-up role with the All Blacks after a mid-season review.

The use of the word “integrity” is particularly loaded, and might also explain why Schmidt and Robertson did not end up working together when NZ Rugby tried to pair them up in 2022, during the period when Foster’s job was clearly on the line after the series loss to Ireland and a subsequent defeat to the Springboks in Mbombela.

Remarkably, the two coaches will now go head-to-head at Eden Park in the first Bledisloe Test, during a Rugby Championship that has already played out like a soap opera.

Colleague Iain Payten’s piece on the Sydney crowd turning feral during the Argentina Test last weekend captured the tournament so far – it’s been an emotional journey, and the final chapters haven’t even been written yet.

It’s that very unpredictability that gives the Wallabies a better-than-usual chance of victory at Eden Park, where the Brumbies memorably ended their own long drought in March.

The more you look at the All Blacks’ performances over the past five years, the more obvious it becomes that the Eden Park record – now 51 Test wins in a row – is a statistical oddity that will end sooner rather than later.

The vulnerabilities they have as a team will, at some point, override their capacity to go deep into the well for performances to protect that record – even if it isn’t against the Wallabies next weekend.

Schmidt would love to be the coach who finally storms the “fortress”. Next weekend won’t be just about him – or Robertson.

But if you believe the bloke in the other coaching box engaged in a bit of self-promotion at the expense of the team you were coaching at the time, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have some extra motivation.

Watch every match of The Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup live and on demand on Stan Sport.