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First, the disclaimer.
The All Blacks are not a bad rugby team. They are, in fact, a very good one.
During Scott Robertson’s time in charge they won 20 out of 27 Tests – a winning rate that no northern hemisphere side, not an all-time Ireland or a resurgent England, can match over the same time period.
They are ranked second in the world. A man down for nearly an hour, they were within a point of winning the last Rugby World Cup final.
They are very good team.
But not even the most one-eyed All Blacks fan would claim they are the best.
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The All Black brand is based on over a century of dominating rugby union, which has seen them transcend the sport and become a global cultural phenomenon.
That a small country with a population of a little over five million is, by some distance, the most consistently successful in the history of the men’s game is an astonishing achievement that has spawned a whole cottage industry in management gurus claiming to explain their over-performance.
But, with Robertson’s dismissal on Thursday, there is a sense of a superpower in decline.
The All Blacks lost only three of 13 matches in 2025, but, when they came, each of those defeats were chastening.
In August, Argentina inflicted a first home defeat on the All Blacks.
In November, England coasted home against them at Twickenham.
And, most painfully of all, in September, South Africa walloped them 43-10 in Wellington.
The Springboks are the current undisputed kings of the men’s game.
A decade ago, New Zealand had just won back-to-back world titles and held a decent claim to being the greatest Test side ever.
Now, South Africa have the same credentials.
And there is no clear reason why, should South Africa be toppled, that New Zealand will be the ones to reclaim the summit.
South Africa, like France and England, have a vastly bigger player pool.
In the past, the All Blacks have defied those raw numbers thanks to the prominence of rugby in their sporting culture, intense domestic competition and a coaching legacy that has built on previous success.
All have been eroded.
Super Rugby, which in its pomp was a prime proving ground for future Test stars, expanded too fast, incorporating teams from Japan and Argentina, and has, with South Africa’s franchises departing for European competition in 2020, contracted dramatically.
New Zealand’s sides are left competing against struggling Australian teams, plus Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika.
Kiwi sides have locked out the last four finals, but the All Blacks are the real losers because of the lack of regular, testing competition.
With the New Zealand dollar losing value over the past five years, plenty of players have chased more money and a higher standard of competition elsewhere – and New Zealand’s policy on picking only domestically-contracted players means the All Blacks have gone without those stars.
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On the coaching side, the All Blacks have had a policy of promoting from within.
Steve Hansen and Ian Foster – Robertson’s two immediate predecessors – both stepped into the All Blacks head coach role after serving as assistants.
Robertson, who previously worked as the ‘Baby Blacks’ under-20s coach before a hugely successful spell with the Canterbury-based Crusaders, was a relative outsider, despite having no significant coaching experience outside of New Zealand.
No foreign coach has ever held the role.
For a long time, that insularity protected winning intellectual property.
Now, next to South Africa’s innovative and cosmopolitan set-up, it seems to be slowing them down.
There is a wider challenge as well.
New Zealand’s rugby authorities, like other countries, are battling against a decline in boys playing the game.
The mystique of the All Blacks has also been dented by the need to leverage it for revenue.
In 2022, US private equity firm Silver Lake bought a stake in the All Blacks in a controversial deal.
Last year, there was a very public dispute with Ineos, the petro-chemical firm owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, over defaults on a sponsorship agreement.
Lucrative matches in emerging markets have become a regular feature of the team’s itinerary, raising funds, but not generating enthusiasm or passion back home.
Off-the-field incidents involving a number of players who subsequently remained on the team, has also tested belief in the All Blacks’ famed policy of not tolerating poor behaviour.
The pipeline of talent, once so certain, has spluttered.
New Zealand won the first under-20 World Cup in 2008, and the following three editions.
But they have reached the final only once in the past five stagings of the tournament, losing to South Africa in Italy last year.
The National Rugby League, Australia’s powerhouse domestic rugby league competition, will reportedly stage one of the games in its showpiece State of Origin series in New Zealand for the first time in 2027, and hopes to launch a second franchise in the country by 2029.
As it is expands and scouts promising rugby prospects, the All Black talent pool shrinks further.
There is always the possibility of another golden generation.
The current one, with talents like Cam Roigard, Wallace Sititi and Will Jordan, is pretty precious.
But whoever takes over from Robertson faces the difficult task of uniting a squad of players for the Rugby World Cup only 20 months away, and overcoming deeper structural issues.
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