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Why do Southern Hemisphere Coaches Reign Supreme?
The appointment of Eddie Jones creates a clean sweep of southern hemisphere coaches at the helm of all four British and Irish teams. On the face of it, this seems to make perfect sense. New Zealand, South Africa & Australia have the best players and teams in the world, so must also have the best coaches. If Northern Hemisphere teams want to succeed, they need to import these masterminds and learn their southern hemisphere secrets. But is it really that simple? Probably not.
In search of redemption, Ian Richie, the shambolic head of English rugby, was quoted as saying they were looking for the best coach in the world, regardless of nationality. The shortlist was southern hemisphere heavy and England ultimately went with Eddie Jones, an Australian coach who assisted a South African World Cup winning team and reached a home World Cup final with Australia. He also created the biggest upset of all time when masterminding Japan’s one hit wonder against South Africa. Not a bad C.V. But if Richie really wanted to improve English rugby, he probably should have been looking for his own replacement as CEO rather than that of head coach.
When identifying the best coaches, it’s very easy to point to World Cup winning coaches such as Graham Henry, Steve Hansen or Jake White, but if we look a bit deeper, their record coaching Northern Hemisphere teams is less impressive. As head coaches of Wales, the two New Zealand coaches left their post with the following stats:
Hansen: Played 34, Won 20 Lost 13*
Henry: Played 29, Won 10 Lost 19*
Now let’s look at their records coaching New Zealand
Hansen: Played 54, Won 49 Lost 3
Henry: Played 103, Won 88 Lost 15
Clearly experience plays a part and they developed as coaches before taking the reins of the All Blacks, but this huge gulf in records is not down to a miraculous improvement in coaching techniques, it’s down to the phenomenal quality of playing resource available to a New Zealand coach. In the implausible scenario that Conor O’Shea or say Ian McGeechan were given the All Blacks gig, they could arguably do an even better job than Henry or Hansen. (Cue howls of laughter from New Zealanders) And rightfully so, it is a laughable suggestion as New Zealand don’t need an Irish or Scottish coach. But, the point is that England, Scotland etc don’t need an Australian or NZ coach. They need more talented players!
Joe Schmidt is undoubtedly an excellent coach. Ewen Mckenzie proved himself to be slightly less adept. Cheika has worked wonders with Australia, Robbie Deans crumbled. But both Deans and McKenzie were high up on the list of candidates for home nations roles, well ahead of some indigenous coaches.
The point is, Southern Hemisphere coaches are given an aura that is not always deserved and home grown coaches are often overlooked for the exact same reason. Dai Young, Connor O’Shea, Ian McGeechan, Rob Baxter, Jim Mallinder, Mark McCall are just some of the coaches who should be given opportunities at international level.
Southern Hemisphere coaches are put on a pedestal because of the domination of their teams, but this is down to player ability as opposed to national coaching and starts well before an England or Ireland team is selected.
So what is the solution? Having read countless articles on the subject, the one point that sticks out is creating a rugby centric environment from a much younger age. If Northern Hemisphere countries can get 7 year olds playing touch football during their morning school break instead of football, they will be doing a themselves a much better service than forking out big salaries and asking coaches to turn a James Haskell into a Jerome Kaino. It’s not going to happen. It’s way too late for Haskell and his selfie stick.
The Northern Hemisphere has plenty of able head coaches, they just need to be given better resources to challenge, and that starts from the moment a kid picks up a rugby ball and decides he wants to be the next Lomu rather than the next Beckham. A tough challenge but one that should be recognised!
