There was a point last year where if the chief executive of New Zealand Rugby had found a $100 note in the street he would have slipped a disc while bending down to pick it up.
The 49-year-old former All Black couldn’t do a thing right. Not in the court of public opinion, at least. If you parsed the headlines you would have discovered he talked when he had nothing to say, he didn’t talk when he should have had something to say, he was indecisive, he was impulsive.
There were broken relationships with the players, broken relationships within Sanzaar, a private equity deal that invited scepticism, a Covid-shaped financial hole and an All Black team at its lowest ebb since the post-Cardiff funk of ’07.
On the basis that the buck had to stop somewhere, or perhaps the more accurate metaphor was the one about the fish rotting from the head, the blame tended to rest with Robinson and his high-profile former chairman Brent Impey.
Just lately, however, the noise has, if not abated, then dampened down.
While there have been quibbles around the playoff structure and the usual gripes about the standard of the footy and availability of All Blacks, the second year of Super Rugby Pacific has bedded in nicely, with viewership and engagement numbers increasing sharply from last year.
The private equity deal with Silver Lake, although radically reshaped from the
