Kiwi rugby critic labels Bok coach Rassie 'childish' for Tony Brown 'I'm staying' video

The fallout from last week’s shock sacking of All Black coach Scott Robertson by the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) continues, with a leading Kiwi commentator calling the NZRU a “bunch of clowns”, and veteran coach Eddie Jones questioning how an anonymous questionnaire given to players could hold sway.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has not escaped either, with Scotty Stevenson, a famous Kiwi rugby pundit, labeling him “childish and disrespectful” for his social media post on Tony Brown not being lost from the Springboks to the All Blacks.

Erasmus posted a video of Brown’s face superimposed over Leonardo DiCaprio with a voice saying ‘I’m not f..kingleaving’. This was a scene from the movie The Wolf of Wall Street.

“I think a lot of people are enjoying the schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the misfortune of another) of the moment; that is for sure. Certainly, South African fans are,” Stevenson said on his Sport Nation show.

Stevenson is half-South African — his mother is from Durban. His South African equivalent would have been Darren Scott in his heyday.

“Rassie Erasmus’s AI post of Tony Brown was childish. I think it does a coaching compatriot in Scott Robertson a massive disservice as well, but that’s stirring the pot and grist for the mill, Stevenson said on his Sport Nation show.”

Stevenson labeled the NZ Rugby Board a ‘pack of clowns’ for not consulting former coach Sir Wayne Smith, who is on their bankroll as their “Mr Fix-It”.

“So your wide-ranging review does not involve your foremost expert on the game (Smith)? That’s astonishing to me. And read between the lines on that, if you will. And Smith’s comments in a newspaper article are very supportive of Robertson.

“This is not about whether you believe in Scott Robertson, the All Black coach. It’s whether you want to believe in following processes, and whether you want to believe that a fair process has been run here. A definitive one, for sure, which leads me to believe that they wanted him gone, and went through a pantomime act to get the result.”

Jones, meanwhile, told the Rugby Unity podcast that he was astounded that the NZRU based their decision on feedback from players who never had to put their names to their answers to questions about Robertson.

“Every team now can do an anonymous team survey at the end of the season, and any disgruntled player’s views go into the survey,” he said.

“At the Brumbies, I was a young coach coming through, and they did a survey in the first year where we came 10th. We were terrible, and we didn’t do anything to change what had been done before; we basically ran with the model that was there, which had been successful.

“Next year, we changed it to train much harder, had a different approach to the game, players became a lot more accountable, and we were more demanding of them.

“I remember the survey came back and everything was s**t, but we came fifth, and that was on the way to becoming champions. You’ve got to be careful about these anonymous surveys.”

Jones said the lack of detail around NZ Rugby’s explanation was troubling.

“The implication is that the senior players didn’t trust the coaching team … based on what? What didn’t they trust them on?”

“We don’t actually know the details. They tell you everything else, but they don’t tell you the crucial point.

“Was it selection? Was it the captaincy? Was it the way they were playing or training? Was it conversations or stories that were told? What was it?”