It’s been a rough week.
First, Mauricio Pochettino, the wonderful chest-freezer-chested Argentinian manager of Tottenham Hotspur was sacked, quickly replaced by comedy villain Jose Mourinho. If you’re not familiar with these names, think of the Obama-Trump transition and how well that’s gone.
Then, Dave Rennie, the wonderful former Chiefs coach who delivered our first two Super Rugby titles back in 2012 and 13, was unveiled as the Wallabies coach when I was naively hoping he had an outside chance at being the next All Blacks coach, or part of the crew.
Fans’ relationships with your team’s coach is a weird, almost parental one. It’s the players scoring the goals and runs etc, but it’s the coach who makes the plan. And the one that gets binned when things don’t go well.
From 2001 to 2014, Tottenham had seven managers, putting fans through an endless cycle of hope, crushed dreams, resignation and rebuilding. Rinse and repeat. Pochettino gave us consistency where once there was chaos and underachievement. Suddenly we were one of the best teams in England year after year. It actually took some getting used to.
And last year he took us to the Champions League final, via incredible, exhilarating last minute wins over Manchester City and Ajax.
And yet - despite doing all this with no money to refresh his team, when the resources got stretched past breaking point this year, the depressing avalanche of headlines arrived once more.
Top level football is obviously a ruthless business, and Spurs chair Daniel Levy is more cut-throat than most, but I desperately wanted Poch to stay and turn it around. He’s given us so much. I just wanted him to be happy.
No doubt he’ll pop up somewhere else and make a huge success of things, but this hurts quite a lot right now. We never got to see what might have been, or a chance to say sorry this happened, goodbye and thanks for everything*.
Back here, the search for a new All Blacks coach is not so much heating up as melting in the sun. NZR controls everything to do with coaching in New Zealand, with the express purpose of developing depth.
But a Christmas parade of extremely capable coaches who’ve done everything right by winning Super Rugby titles and getting overseas experience are ruling themselves out. We’re left playing musical chairs with those perennial options of Whoever’s #2 (Ian Foster, extremely underwhelming last time he was a head coach), and Whoever’s The Crusaders Coach (Scott Robertson, who is great but completely untested at international level).
Tell fans who’ve put up with Mark Hammett at the Hurricanes and Tana at the Blues in the name of developing depth that a succession plan of waiting until the last minute, then firing out a whole lot of emails, is good enough. The cream of world rugby passed us by, after a world cup where we weren’t good enough. I think it’s a bit rubbish.
Coaching is a hell of a job. In a previous life I was lucky enough to see BLACKCAPS coach Mike Hesson do his thing close up. His vision, meticulous planning and extremely clear communication skills were easily the equal of anything I saw in corporate land (Im not damning with faint praise here). He was extremely level headed about the whole thing. And he was great company, supporting Liverpool aside. It takes a brave and special person to do this at any level, let alone at the top.
Most of us would struggle doing our jobs with reporters questioning our every move and the threat of an instant sacking lurking nearby. I admire people who do it, and feel for those whose hard work doesn’t turn out for them, when they’re called into the chairman’s office. I hope your team’s coaches are going all right.
Thanks for reading - Richard
*Yes, this is an extremely strange thing for a man in his mid 40’s to sit down and type out. Ahem.
The week's best NZ sport content
Sonny Bill Williams on being Muslim. One of the most-discussed athletes in New Zealand, the thing I admire about him is how he floats above it all [RNZ / BBC]
You want Neil Wagner on your team. The sweetest guy off the field, when he has the ball he turns into an animal, stretching every fibre to win you the game. James Borrowdale sings his praises [The Spinoff]
Dave Leggat on Lea Tahuhu, the White Ferns’ fastest female in the world [LockerRoom]
This week it’s Bay Oval’s debut as the Test ground it was always meant to be. Here’s Guy Heveldt on Mount Maunganui’s ‘If you build it they will come’ moment, and Sportsfreak on our Test grounds on debut [TVNZ, Sportsfreak]
You must read Steve Braunias’ review of Kieren Read’s book [Newsroom]
Video nasty
When my ass was nineteen and a half years old, I changed the face of professional baseball (NZFW language warning!).
Long read
From the archives - checking in with Lance Armstrong in 2014, a few months after his hypodermic house of cards came to bits [Esquire]
Recommendation
The Righteous Gemstones is the latest from Danny McBride and Jody Hill, the team behind Eastbound and Down (see above) and Vice Principals. The Gemstones are a dynasty of mega-moneyed evangelists with some serious secrets bursting to get out, and the humour is blacker than Johnny Cash’s undies. Track it down, it’s on Neon.
Selected weekend fixtures
Today is day two of the first Test v England from Mount Maunganui, play starts at 11am and it’s set to go through until Monday. It’s on SKY
West Ham host Tottenham at 1.30am, then Man City play Chelsea at 6.30am Sunday, they’re on Spark Sport
Bring back the gif
When you hear the number of weeks until Christmas.
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