Rugby
1News

'You're the attack coach' - Ian Foster bristles momentarily after being quizzed by reporter on change of style

November 21, 2018

The attack coach initially said he didn’t know how significant the changes were during the defeat by Ireland.

All Blacks attack coach Ian Foster has bristled momentarily when answering questions about change in the All Blacks' style.

Asked in Rome ahead of the season-ending Test against Italy whether the shift was philosophical or structural and how significant it was, Foster said, "I don’t know".

Foster went on to elaborate after the journalist asked, given he was the attack coach, whether he should know.

"Well I'm not going to sit here and actually say this is a major or a minor, we're just making a few little changes."

Foster said the coaches were reflecting on how they were communicating the changes to the group.

"We're happy with the understanding of the group and the direction, we still haven't got the habits to the degree that we want to have them, so some of that is player understanding, but also we as a coaching group, we analyse how we're delivering it and what we’re asking them to do, making sure we're doing the best job we can.

"We're all trying to just dig deeper into small areas to make sure we're really clear as a team and we're getting there with that."

Beauden Barrett said the changes were frustrating at times but felt it had been a good year of development overall.

"What we've been playing with is different structures so that ultimately at some point we can pick and choose, depending on who we're playing against," Barrett said today.

"I guess the frustrating thing is not being able to get the ball to where it needs to get to, to execute key moments and to hurt defences.

"It's been a good year for us in terms of trying a few new things which is important to keep growing."

The team were unaffected by the public's reaction to the loss against Ireland, Foster said

"There's always a lot of panic around us when we drop a game, and that's to be expected," he said.

"That's just the passion of our supporters isn't it, so we got no issues with that, no issues with high expectations and no issues with disappointment when we don't play to the levels that we want.

"For us, it doesn’t change what we’re doing."

SHARE ME

More Stories