Springbok assistant coach Tony Brown has distanced himself from speculation that he will join the All Blacks’ staff, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. When New Zealand Rugby (NZR) sacked coach Scott Robertson in early January, the speculation turned to who would succeed him — and you didn’t have to be a rugby aficionado to put two and two together and come up with Jamie Joseph. The former All Black flanker and current Highlanders coach is well regarded, tough as Karoo biltong and the perfect man, steeped in All Blackmana, to do the job.
Of course, there are other contenders such as former Chiefs and Wallabies coach Dave Rennie, former All Black coach Wayne Smith and former Ireland and Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt. But Joseph’s name keeps coming up. Speculation was further fuelled when he was absent from the Highlanders’ pre-season training for a couple of days this week.
Players were told to carry on with individual training programmes. Was Joseph meeting with NZR hierarchy, who have put themselves under pressure to find a replacement quickly? No one was saying, but it was an odd moment for a coach to go awol.
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The 2026 Test season is not exactly dotted with easy fixtures for a new coach to find his feet while also plotting an assault on Rugby World Cup 2027 in Australia, which is only 20 months away. The amount of work a Test coach needs to get through in the first six months of the year is mountainous — from analysing player data, to working out the logistics of a campaign — and every day wasted lowers the chances of success. NZR has put itself under immense pressure to find a replacement quickly.
Joseph has the additional benefit of technically already being employed by NZR as a franchise coach. It would require only a small reshuffle to redeploy him to the top job. Joseph coached the All Blacks XV (essentially their second team) on a short tour to Britain late last year as well.
Moving Joseph into the top job would be the easy part, which would largely be welcomed in New Zealand. The hard part is when it comes to assistant coaches, because every head coach wants to choose his lieutenants. Which leads to Tony Brown, the Boks’ attack coach. He is a former All Blacks star who has a long working relationship and friendship with Joseph.
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