Former All Blacks coach a bit concerned about New Zealand rugby's standard, still lagging

Ahead of the 2023 World Cup, we were a little concerned to see the All Blacks' level slipping little by little, month after month, year after year. And if the New Zealanders reach the World Cup finals, Ian Foster, the former coach of that team, still offers a somewhat mixed assessment regarding the standard of rugby in his country.

New Zealand rugby team struggles to recover from Covid crisis

The former Blacks boss, who has since made way for Scott Robertson, explained the reason for this decline in New Zealand rugby during an intervention on The Times podcast, 'The Ruck'. To make things clear, we have to go back to the Covid crisis. New Zealand is a small, isolated island that has seen a very strict policy during the health crisis, with borders completely closed. Therefore, players were unable to compete against other countries, and saw their level gradually stagnate, or even decline.

During Covid, we became very isolated for obvious reasons and spent two years just playing with each other. And to generate interest, which is complicated in this environment, we told everyone that Super Rugby was the best tournament in the world.

When a player played well in Super Rugby, they said he was the best in the world but we played in a very small circle, just between us (…) and suddenly, we were back on the international stage and the rest of the world carried on. development. And I don't see us catching up until 2023.

We are close to where we want to be, but in recent years we have done a lot of damage. Structurally we are still at a lower level. Super Rugby and the NPC are struggling to find their place (…) Now we are struggling against a lot of bigger teams with systems in place in their countries