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Sport Nation
Live sport on SN this weekend'We've got to start being the bullies again': Why the All Blacks need Jamie Joseph
Stephen Foote •  January 16th, 2026 10:14 am
Jamie Joseph | Photo: Photosport
The New Zealand sporting sphere was tipped on its axis on Thursday, with news of Scott Robertson's removal as All Blacks head coach.
Eventually, NZ Rugby put an end to the rampant speculation by confirming they'd decided that - given the team's recent results and the current stage of the World Cup cycle - Robertson would "depart his role" immediately on the back of their internal annual review.
The decision sent shockwaves across the rugby landscape, with Robertson becoming the first All Blacks head coach to be sacked since John Mitchell back in 2003 and just halfway through his four-year tenure.
Former All Blacks captain Gary Whetton believes that while the decision was undeniably difficult, it was ultimately the correct one to make given the team's subpar form over the past two years.
Photo: Hernan Cortéz/Photosport
"You can't just keep on doing the same thing and going nowhere," Whetton told Sport Nation. "You have to be brutally honest here in regards to our national team.
"We hadn't gone forward at all in the last two years. In fact, it was a disarray, and it was going backwards and it probably would have continued.Â
"There were some bold steps taken at the end of the day, not easy ones for David Kirk and the board. Time will tell what it's about, but I think it was the right decision."
Robertson's reign was plagued by inconsistent selections and results, falling on the wrong side of history with some milestone defeats to the likes of Argentina.
David Kirk speaks to media following Scott Robertson's All Blacks exit | Sport Nation
As the team's lack of on-field direction grew, so did the criticism of his phalanx of coaching assistants, whose multitude of voices many believed were a primary reason for what seemed an absence of a clear and unified style of play.
Questions were asked whether Robertson was taking charge in that respect, or leaning too heavily on his assistants.
Add to that equation two of those assistants - Leon MacDonald and Jason Holland - chose to leave his staff, and Whetton is confident it was the latter.
"He was the 'Minister of Culture' he used to like to say. That's where it starts. But in this day, his role needed to be hands-on and he wasn't hands-on," added the 58-Test international.Â
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"He had all these lieutenants doing all these different jobs and let's face it, quite a few lieutenants left the job and resigned for various reasons and it just was helter skelter.Â
"You could see it in the selections, you couldn't get the same All Black team for three or four Tests in a row. You could see it in their gameplan - I still can't work out what that was. I still can'tÂ
"I think it was a very difficult decision, but in some ways it probably was the obvious one."Â
With Robertson having exited, nationwide attention has now shifted to just who should be his replacement.
The public's wishlist includes the likes of Tony Brown and Joe Schmidt, whose contract situations with SA Rugby and Rugby Australia respectively could make either a relative longshot.
Who survives the All Blacks review? | Sport Nation
The most common name and the candidate who appears the frontrunner is Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph - someone whose' "old school" methods are precisely what the All Blacks need, Whetton insists.
"Jamie is a person who's completely different to Razor.Â
"He's strong, he's out there in the sense of old school rugby, and I think if you look at international rugby, the All Blacks need to get back to that.Â
"We've got to start being the bullies again and not the guys who take it all. You look at what the Springboks have done, and he can muster that side of it."
Whoever the successor is, he needs to be instated as soon as possible, Whetton adds.
"They need to make a call pretty quickly. It can't drag on and on because our season starts soon and you've got to get it going.Â
"I'd like to think they could have a person in place by the end of the month."
Listen to the full interview:
