New Zealand Rugby gave Ian Foster vote of confidence despite recent poor performances

• Scott Sio joins English Premiership club Exeter from Super Rugby team the Brumbies.
• The Wallabies front-rower has been capped 71 times for Australia.
• Sio is the sixth player to sign with Exeter ahead of the new season, joining Jack Dunne, Rory O’Loughlin, Aidon Davis, Ruben Van Heerden, and Solomone Kata.

New Zealand Rugby said on Wednesday that Ian Foster will continue to coach the All Blacks until the World Cup in 2023. This is despite the fact that the team hasn’t done well lately.

Foster thanked the board and CEO Mark Robinson for their “strong support” after a meeting where his fate was decided. He looked relieved.

Foster said, “It’s a privilege to be in this job, it’s never something you take for granted,”

The 57-year-old stays in charge for the All Blacks’ next home test on August 27 against Argentina in Christchurch. He will also coach New Zealand at the Rugby World Cup in France in September 2023.

Foster will get more help from Joe Schmidt, who was a New Zealand selector and used to be the head coach of Ireland.

“Joe Schmidt has been on my radar for a couple of years,” said Foster.

“We’ve decided to move him from the computer room to put him on the park a bit more.”

Stewart Mitchell, the chairman of New Zealand Rugby, said that the board had faith in Foster even though the All Blacks have lost three of their first five Test matches this year, leading fans and the media to call for him to be fired.

“I want to absolutely emphasise that both Ian Foster as head coach and Mark as CEO has full support from the board,” said Mitchell.

Foster was under a lot of pressure after Ireland beat them at home twice in a row and then South Africa beat them badly.

“It’s clearly been a difficult time, the start of the campaign we didn’t get what we wanted against Ireland and that created a lot of performance stress,” Foster said.

Even after the All Blacks beat the Springboks 35-23 in the second Test in Johannesburg last Saturday, New Zealand Rugby boss Robinson still wouldn’t publicly back Foster.

A reporter said that the All Blacks coach had been “hung out to dry.” The coach said that was not true.

“In some ways that is part of the job and it’s part of Robo (Robinson) and Stew’s (Mitchell) job as well to critique me,” said Foster.

“I’d rather it wasn’t there, but we live in the real world and we’re under pressure to perform. I don’t mind that.”

After Saturday’s win, senior All Blacks Ardie Savea and captain Sam Cane were already behind Foster.

Julian Savea, a former winger for the All Blacks, wrote on Instagram last week that he was “shocked and disturbed” by some of the recent comments about Ian Foster.

Robinson said he could have done a better job with the last few weeks.

“We are trying our best for our sport and our people. Sure, we never get everything right, but at no stage do we ever not do what’s best for our people,” he said.

There were also calls for Robinson to step down in the New Zealand media, but Robinson insisted that the All Blacks camp was united.

“The developments and changes we’ve seen and some of the tweaks Foster (has made are) something we’re really excited about,” he said.

“We believe — from board level, executive and player group — we’re all behind this together.”

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