YOKO KOBAYASHI, Wellington | Saturday 4.3pm.
THE New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) hope to find a coach before the end of the year following the resignation of John Hart.
”John has made an enormous contribution to New Zealand and All Black rugby over the past two decades,” said NZRFU chief executive David Rutherford.
”However, our focus now is on finding a new All Black coach to take the team into a new millennium.”
The next step will be to call for applications for the position and once those are reviewed, interviews will be conducted with the final decision to be made by the NZRFU board.
”But we will be moving quickly to find the best candidate for New Zealand’s most important coaching role,” he said in a statement.
Hart pre-empted the guillotine on Friday by offering his resignation after a shock semifinal defeat by France destroyed New Zealand’s World Cup dreams on Sunday.
The country, which mourned the loss in what media called ”Black Monday”, plunged further into a ”Black Daze” after a 22-18 defeat by the Springboks in the third place play-off on Thursday.
That defeat means the team will have to qualify for the next World Cup in 2003 for the first time.
The Dominion newspaper quoted Rugby Union chairman Rob Fisher in Cardiff as saying the decision for Hart’s replacement would be made before Christmas with early front-runners being Hart’s technical adviser Wayne Smith and assistant coach Peter Sloane.
Other suggestions from the media have been Welsh coach Graham Henry, All Black selector Gordon Hunter, England assistant coach John Mitchell, Super 12 coaches Tony Gilbert, Frank Oliver and Ross Cooper, potential Italian coach John Boe and former captains Wayne Shelford and Graham Mourie — along with former All Black flyhalf Grant Fox.
There was little sympathy at home for the outgoing 53-year old coach who said he would not renew his four year contract which ends on December 6.
Disappointed fans singled him out for the crushing defeats and their anger turned into growing calls for Hart to resign over the week.
”Right time to lose Hart: the coach takes pats on the back for wins and kicks in the butt for losses. John Hart has nowhere to go but out,” the Weekend Herald newspaper headlined in its front page story.
It quoted the former coach Laurie Mains as saying the All Blacks had lacked any apparent game plan against the French for which he believed Hart was responsible.
The rot started a year ago and the All Blacks management had simply ”papered over the cracks”, he said.
”The team’s management have pushed the marketing side too hard at the expense of basic rugby.
”They all have to be kept in perspective and in balance,” Maines was quoted as saying.
”In this day and age of huge sponsorship and marketing drive, the team and the players do have a responsibility to that. But it must never be allowed to interfere with their mental and physical preparation for a game,” he said.
An editorial in the Herald’s sport section was calling for other heads to roll too – the NZRFU board. — Reuters