Departing All Blacks coach Ian Foster will spend the coming month saying his final farewells to long-serving All Blacks.
Foster may also be joined by assistant coaches as they pay their respects to some of New Zealand rugby’s great servants.
After 12 years of dedication to the black jersey, Foster’s relationships with the playing group run deep, and so the 58-year-old has offered up a very Kiwi catchup.
“I’ve invited a few of them to come around and pitch their tent on the lawn and maybe have a weekend,” Foster told reporters upon landing in Auckland. “I’ll supply the music and a barbecue and they can maybe bring a few drinks.
“I actually might fly around and see a few of them in the next month, just to do the sendoff properly.”
Those years in the coaching box saw Foster contribute to one of the most dominant eras in rugby history, holding an assistant role with the All Blacks for the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
While his tenure as head coach was a mixed bag by New Zealand standards, finishing with a Rugby World Cup silver medal sees Foster leave the All Blacks having improved on the bronze finish Steve Hansen led the team to in 2019.
“I’m actually feeling really proud. It’s been a tough World Cup and I think everyone knew it was going to be like that. We had a draw that’s been spoken about for a long time.
“I think the whole year we really built to where we wanted to be and I’m really proud of the way the players stuck at it. I thought we got better and better as the tournament went on and that’s really the goal.
“You can’t be any more any more proud of a group of men that when things weren’t going our own way – and I just don’t mean referee calls or cards, I mean like Jordie puts the chip in and it doesn’t quite bounce for Ardie, little things like that that on another day might pop up into a hand and didn’t. And yet, I thought the way that we showed what it means to us was there for everyone to see and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”
The coach won’t buy into any of the narratives around his tenure or debate over the extent of his success, especially in relation to his predecessors.
“I’ll let you guys do all that. I’m happy.
“I think I got dealt a bunch of cards probably more different than any other All Blacks coach in many different ways; In terms of the governance of the game, the leaders of the game, Covid, a whole lot of different things and all I can say is I did the best I could.”
