Smithy: Endless Winters & The Spring of '22

By Phil Gifford and Wayne Smith

Wayne Smith is arguably the finest rugby brain in the world - a man the players he coached dubbed 'The Professor'. In Smithy: Endless Winters & The Spring of '22, we'll hear from not only Wayne, but also the women and men who took the Ferns to a World title. In this long-awaited memoir, Wayne Smith will tell his best, most entertaining, insightful, and amusing anecdotes from an amazing career in in the game. We'll look inside the Black Ferns' World Cup triumph, which saw Wayne go from a man entitled to free bus rides with his Gold Card, to the dancing leader of a diverse, vibrant group of players and coaches who won all Kiwis' hearts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upstart Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781776949977

Phil Gifford

Phil Gifford is an award-winning broadcaster, sports journalist, speaker and author. Creator of satirical rugby character Loosehead Len, Phil has hosted No. 1 radio shows and won 14 radio awards over three decades in New Zealand and Australia, and is the author of 17 bestselling sports books.

Book preview

Writer’s Note

Wayne Smith caught the eye of my old friend Loosehead Len back in the 1980s when Loosehead was offending the sensibilities of more traditional rugby people. ‘There’s more beef on a butcher’s apron than you’d find on this kid Smith,’ Loosehead wrote in 1982. ‘But he can run. When his missus wants a needle threaded, she just gives the end of the cotton to him, and he runs through the eye.’

Fast-forward almost 40 years, and Smithy proved almost as elusive when, for six years, I tried to get him to agree to doing a book. Every year on his birthday I’d email best wishes from my wife Jan and me, and suggest it was time he did a book. Every year I’d get a ‘Thanks for the birthday thoughts. You’re persistent, aren’t you? Thanks, but the answer’s still no.’

The ice broke in June 2022, after he’d turned 65 and started coaching the Black Ferns. Neither of us could have predicted how the country would take the women’s team to its heart, or that the first chapters of Smithy’s book would now be devoted to one of the great, most inspiring stories in New Zealand sport.

Being able to record the remarkable four-decade arc of Wayne’s rugby career was a constant reminder that when you’re working with the right person, writing a book is a privilege.

So, thanks to Smithy, his family and his friends, for their time and insights.

I’m hugely grateful to publisher Warren Adler, who is forever exactly the cheerful, calming, fair-minded person a writer needs.

Most of all my thanks to Jan, for love and support that never wavered, no matter how grumpy or distracted I got at the keyboard.

Phil Gifford, Christchurch, June 2023

Foreword

Wayne Smith has always been, above all, an innovator who doesn’t fear treading his own path and not following the crowd. His original thinking and ideas had a significant role in the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cups 2011 and 2015 and the Black Ferns winning in 2022. He’s the only New Zealand coach to be involved in three Rugby World Cup-winning teams.

My first memories of Smithy are of him playing for Canterbury and then the All Blacks from the late 1970s into the 80s. That was a time when Canterbury held the Ranfurly Shield for a record 25 challenges. You’d politely describe him as slight. More bluntly he was small, weighing less than 80 kg. But he never shied away from challenging tough, much bigger opponents.

How did he manage to overachieve? He loved the game, was massively diligent, bright, had a finely tuned game understanding and was a good communicator. He was also tough, mentally and physically. It’s the same with his coaching. Smithy has a growth mindset, humble and hungry, always looking to learn and improve — the key to his continual success.

There’s also huge commitment. His unbelievable knowledge of potential international players, from schoolboy level through to the All Blacks, never failed to blow me away. I believe the right selection probably accounts for 70 per cent of success in rugby.

For me, some of the most stimulating occasions during my time with the All Blacks were the discussions — sometimes very animated — on game plans, tactics and improvement of players, with Smithy, Steve Hansen and Mike Cron. Great memories.

In hindsight, Smithy had the perfect mix of experience. On the field, he’d played the quarterback role, as the decision-maker for Canterbury and the All Blacks. And he had the right personal qualities: humble, hungry, bright, extremely hard-working, with the confidence to express his unique perspectives on the game, much of which was new to rugby. That’s why he is The Professor.

Smithy also has a deep love of the game and a personal gratitude for what rugby has done for him as an individual. As a result, he believes the rugby intellectual property that he’s acquired should be freely shared with fellow rugby people. In reality, though, many don’t have the rugby IQ to put this knowledge into action on the field.

Smithy is all about the team, not about Smithy. When he was first involved with the All Blacks, he just wanted to do his job quietly with a minimum of fuss, as a dedicated, focused, intellectual rugby coach. That attitude was different from the norm at the time. His game was not only based on physicality but also on intelligence; on his team having the ability to outplay the opposition with superior game understanding and execution.

In today’s world this has universal acceptance, but 20 or so years ago it was seen by some as perhaps overly focused on the need to ‘chill’, relax, and be more out there. The decision-makers simply didn’t understand that this guy was different. It was a factor in him not getting reappointed in 2001 as All Blacks head coach. He was just ahead of his time. Those close to the game knew that he was a class above everyone else and were desperate to have him in their team.

The players wanted him there, too. I’m sure many would say Smithy was a major, or even the main, influence on their success. His empathy with the players and understanding of the pressures these young men go through were deep because he had been there himself.

When he wasn’t reappointed All Blacks coach in 2001, Smithy went to Northampton Saints in the England Rugby Premiership and, as you might have anticipated, made an immediate difference. He also loved the job and the people. So, when I rang to ask him to help me with the All Blacks in 2004 there were some hurdles to jump. Smithy and his very supportive family — wife Trish and twin sons Nick and Josh — were rightly very disappointed and hurt at how New Zealand Rugby had handled his non-reappointment. His initial reaction to my request was one of surprise: ‘Why me?’ — that humility — and then, ‘I’ll discuss this with the family and get back to you, Ted.’ He did. ‘No, sorry, Ted.’

To cut a long story short, I rang Steve Hansen in Wales who then visited Smithy in Northampton and thankfully the Smith family put country first. As a result, New Zealand and our rugby has benefited enormously. Smithy has been extremely influential in enabling New Zealand to win three Rugby World Cups.

Along the way there were the lessons that came out of the 2007 World Cup where the All Blacks got beaten for the first time in a quarterfinal in Cardiff, 20–18. A lot was made of officiating in that game, and to be frank it wasn’t helpful. But we should have been able to handle that. We were complacent, having had a 90 per cent winning record over 2005–07. We’d beaten France by a big score in Lyon the year before. As a result, we got ahead of ourselves. But the defeat, and what we learnt from it, were very much the foundations for the 2011 and 2015 victories. Fortunately, the decision-makers were also learning and stuck with the All Blacks coaches, including Smithy. The rest is history.

Sir Wayne Smith is an outstanding rugby coach and an outstanding person. I feel very privileged and fortunate to have coached with him for a decade, and to call him my friend.

Sir Graham Henry, Auckland, June 2023

The Girls of the Spring of ’22

BLACK FERNS 2022

1.

Call of the Fern

‘What is coaching but an act of love?’

Jean-Pierre Egger, coach of Olympic gold-medal shot putter Dame Valerie Adams

I’m the smallest guy in my class at Putāruru Primary School. We’re lining up to play bullrush at lunchtime, and, because I know I look like easy pickings, I’ll be the first runner called. There are no teachers, no referees, no touch judges, just a bunch of bigger, stronger kids waiting to smash me as I try to run past them.

But I have a healthy dose of self-preservation and speed, and I’ve seen how the good runners do it. So, I’m going to run for the gaps, slide on one knee, get up and step the other way.

It works. I survive. And a lesson I’ll take throughout my playing and coaching life is learned. If you have a good plan, it can save the day.

* * *

My first words to the media after it had been announced I’d be the coach of the Black Ferns for the 2022 World Cup were, ‘Look, I applied for the pension two days ago, so this is all new to me. You’re going to have to give me a bit of time, but I’m really excited. I’ve had a couple of training runs with these girls, and I’m really impressed by their attitude. Now we can get on with it and can create something exciting.

‘I’ve already said to the girls we’re going to win the World Cup at Eden Park in front of 40,000 people. But we’re not going to win it today. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re going to be true to our DNA in this country. We’ll play an attacking game, and if we need to reinvent things we will.’

I used the example of how our ancestors used number 8 wire to fix everything. I’ve never forgotten how my dad once fixed a snapped fanbelt in our car by using Mum’s stocking.

We all knew there had to be a huge sea change if the Ferns were going to win the first women’s World Cup to be held in New Zealand.

The Black Ferns had won five of the last six Cups, but in April of 2022 no sensible person would have picked us to be favourites when the tournament kicked off seven months later in Auckland.

Why not? Let’s start with the end-of-year tour the Ferns made to England and France in November 2021.

I was in Japan at the time they were in Europe. I didn’t watch the games or even know the results.

But when I got home, not long before Christmas, I saw that they’d lost 43–12 and 56–15 to England, and 38–13 and 29–7 to France.

Considering how dominant the Black Ferns had been, and with the talent we’ve got, I thought, That’s really strange.

I started reading about it. How Covid had limited training in New Zealand. How the Ferns hadn’t played a full international for two years. How England and France were in the middle of making the women’s game professional, while we were still amateurs.

Now aware of the difficulties the team had faced, I settled in at home at Waihī Beach to watch the games.

I still had an analytical programme from my time with the All Blacks, and with Kobe in Japan. I was able to download the footage of the England and French tests and look at the data.

On Waiheke Island, Sir Graham Henry — Ted — was taking a similar interest. For both of us it was purely personal. We had no formal connection to the Black Ferns, but we were intrigued by what had happened. I rang Ted and we were very much on the same page. ‘They’ve got to change the game, Smithy. They’ve got to play wider.’

‘Yeah, I know, Ted. I’m seeing the exact same thing.’

I did some coding and cut some clips. It was quickly obvious that the Black Ferns were behind the eight ball.

They’d been playing against two teams who were extremely strong up front, particularly with driving mauls.

If the Black Ferns kicked the ball out against England or France, especially England, the opposition would win the lineout. They’d drive it. They’d get a penalty and kick it further down the field. They’d win the ball off their throw, drive that, get a penalty, and kick it into the corner. Then they’d score a try from the lineout.

Immediately I was thinking, They need to keep the ball in hand. They’ve got to offload more to keep it alive. Play wide. Fatigue the bigger teams. Have all attackers coming forward so that their defenders can’t double tackle. Force them to mark everyone.

But with the Black Ferns in ’21, Covid mandates meant the team were underdone, tactically and physically. There were obviously difficulties with not having the time to prepare properly. It was no one’s fault.

And I think a surprise for the Black Ferns would have been how much England and France had improved. How much their game had developed under professionalism.

The English forward pack was so strong. They’d developed probably the best lineout in the world, men or women. Simple, but so accurate.

England were scoring try after try from their maul. France had a bit more of an all-round game. I’m not saying England can’t play that game. But they played to their strengths, and it was working. I had no idea when Graham and I talked in December that a meeting with an old mate in Waihī in January would lead to us working together again at a World Cup.

Mark Robinson, the Chief Executive of New Zealand Rugby, is a very good friend of mine. I coached him in the All Blacks. He’s a clever guy, with honours degrees in political studies and philosophy from Cambridge University.

Mark’s got a bach in Whangamatā on the Coromandel, so in the summer, when he was heading back to Wellington after the holidays, we decided to have breakfast together at the Ti Tree Café in Waihī.

It was on 14 January. I’ll never forget it.

Robbo and I are having breakfast and just chatting in general as mates do. Then I said to him, ‘I’ve just watched the Black Ferns on the end-of-year tour, and I know the coaches pretty well.

‘Head coach Glenn Moore is a mate. I had a lot to do with him when he was coaching the Highlanders. I’ve also had a lot of meetings with Assistant Coach Wes Clarke going back to when I was at the Chiefs, a decade earlier.’

I knew Assistant Coach Johnny Haggart as a hell of a good footballer, and as a coach with Otago. When I was virtually retired, I played an invitation game with Johnny down in Temuka. He played second-five outside me, and I think he scored four tries.

So, I just mentioned to Robbo, ‘If these guys need a hand on the field through the season, I’ll be happy to help out, as a sort of mentor.’ Robbo said they’d also had an approach from Graham Henry to say that he was keen to be an advisor too.

Mike Cron, the great All Blacks forwards coach, had done a limited amount of work with the Black Ferns before they’d gone overseas, and I think NZR were keen to see if he would do a bit more for the Cup. I drove back home to the beach and didn’t think too much more about any role I might play with the Black Ferns.

Who would have known how much that would change?

In December, just after the Ferns returned from Europe, hooker Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate posted on Instagram that, ‘Over the past eight years that I have been in the Black Ferns, I have struggled mentally and finally let it all out on the most recent tour. Yes, I had a mental breakdown in front of everyone.’

The shockwaves were huge. A six-person panel, headed by lawyer Phillipa Muir, was formed by NZR to investigate.

Kendra Cocksedge, 68-test Black Ferns halfback: The first Black Ferns camp of the year was in Queenstown. As leaders we needed to check in with the girls on the first day to see what we were all feeling. There was a lot of uncertainty. We all went into a room, led by Les Elder the captain of the 2021 tour, to get it all out on the table. We were due to train that day, but for some people it was quite emotional, so we carried on with the meeting. It was a good thing really, because it cleared the air.

Towards the end of March, with the review findings imminent, I got a call from Mike Anthony, the high-performance manager at NZR, and Chris Lendrum, the head of professional rugby.

Both said they’d be really interested in my offer to assist and asked whether I would still be keen to come and help the coaches as needed through the year.

I said I’d really enjoy that. I felt for what the whole staff, and Te Kura, were going through. Te Kura used the social media platform she was familiar with, not the official NZR channel available to her, but her distress was being taken very seriously. Now we all just had to go through the process and see what would happen.

Mike Anthony was an old friend, who had been our trainer at the Crusaders, and then with the All Blacks. He came back to me with a mentoring-type contract. It was to do work, as needed, with the coaches. I never envisaged myself coaching the team.

After agreeing on terms, there was a meeting in Hamilton with Glenn Moore, Wes Clarke, Johnny Haggart who was on Zoom and, as an advisor, Graham Henry. Graham and I brought our videos, the stuff we’d cut from the games in Europe. We showed the others what we saw with our attack, our defence and our counterattack.

We got total agreement from the coaches that the game needed to change, needed to be way more attacking, if we were going to have any chance against England and France.

There were going to be some technical changes, mainly around the efficiency of our movements, and a better understanding of how to group and spread defences, so that we knew where to attack. How we’d learn from our plays was to become a major factor in our success.

The coaches said they’d really appreciate our support to help them make changes. So, there was total buy-in. At this point Graham was going to be an advisor and a mentor to Glenn Moore, and I was to mentor the rest of the coaching staff.

The first camp we went to was in Christchurch. The review’s findings were released, on 11 April. They were hugely confronting. There were 26 recommendations aimed at improving the team’s culture.

The findings were spot on. In today’s society you need to have a mental skills and a mental health programme in place that creates greater resilience and grit in your players. Empathy and care are essential attributes for today’s coaches and teachers.

All of a sudden, resignations start coming in. John Haggart walked away after a quick meeting with me. A good mate, a great rugby man, who had been a successful coach.

Alex McKenzie, who’s one of the best team-culture coaches in the country, resigned. A lot of the staff were really upset because they felt everyone was involved in what amounted to blanket criticism.

Wes Clarke, who stayed on as an assistant coach, and Whitney Hansen were two who were not criticised. Whitney had been on the northern tour as an intern and, along with Wes, was highly regarded.

Glenn Moore would have found it very difficult because he basically became the centre of the allegations, which I thought was very unfair. All of us make mistakes. Ultimately, he didn’t have the opportunity to make this right. He clearly wasn’t with us mentally that first week in Christchurch after the report. I coached every session that week, along with Wes, Whitney and Crono.

Coming home on the Friday, I had laryngitis; I couldn’t talk. You’ve got to remember, I’d come out of a long spell of doing no coaching. I felt old. When I got back to Waihī Beach, I said to Trish, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ She gave me a big hug and said, ‘You’ve got to do it. There’s no one else!’

I thought, Right-oh, I’m going to harden up.

At the end of the next week, Glenn Moore decided to resign. I think it was the right thing, but he’d been put in a bloody difficult situation. I was looking forward to working with him. While what happened to him may have been unjust, you couldn’t change the outcome.

I had a couple of discussions with Mike Anthony about my position with the Black Ferns. Motsy said, ‘You’re going to have to be director of rugby and the head coach.’ I said, ‘No, I offered to be a coaching mentor, so if you’re going to give me a title, it’s director of coaching, and I’ll help the other coaches.’ He said, ‘Ah.’ I thought we had agreed to it, but the next day in the paper I’m the director of rugby but being described as the head coach. My communications skills clearly needed working on.

I knew it was a reality, but it was difficult because the people who had gone, whose role I was taking, were my friends.

The first camp with me as director of coaching is again in Christchurch. The very first meeting was difficult, to say the least. There was an official apology from New Zealand Rugby to the team. Chris Lendrum, the general manager of professional rugby at NZR, was there. He backed the findings of the review and apologised for any slights, any issues, any mental problems, that had been caused.

They brought in our great kaumātua Luke Crawford, who would later become the official cultural advisor to NZR. A former police officer, he’s a very wise man. He doesn’t muck around and is the go-to man for national teams, making sure protocols are nailed properly, that everyone’s on the right track.

When Luke got up and spoke, a large taonga was passed around. When the taonga came to each person he asked them, if they were comfortable with the idea, to commit to the Black Ferns for 2022.

It went around and I noticed some of the girls didn’t commit because they were unsure of how this was going to work out. There was still a bit of unrest, distrust, uncertainty.

The last person the taonga came to was me. I took it up and put it on the table, and said, ‘I absolutely commit.’ I was now in, boots and all.

I then gave a pepeha presentation to the players. I talked about my background, my whakapapa. I spoke about Putāruru, the Ōraka Stream that ran through the town. I showed them the rugby club where I used to go to practise and play.

My mountain is Maungatautari, a native wildlife sanctuary. Often shrouded in mist, it’s beautiful. Then I talked a wee bit about the history of rugby, and I showed them what the game was like when I played.

It was a test match: New Zealand against the Wallabies. At a scrum I was right up in line with the No. 8’s feet. There was no such thing as a five-metre gap. No lifting in the lineouts. The girls were fascinated at how much things had changed.

I showed them the haka we did back in the 1980s. It was a wonderful thing to do, particularly for a Pākehā boy like me from Putāruru, but we weren’t very good at it. There was no real education around the haka. We did a leap at the end, which you’re not supposed to do. I cringed watching it.

‘We can’t play like we played on the tour last year. We’re going to play the most attacking rugby you’ve ever been involved in. We will be true to who we are as New Zealanders.’

When I went and sat down, Ted got up and gave his pepeha. The introductions were done. It was time for action.

Kendra Cocksedge: We have a couple of Black Fern dances. When someone’s new in the team they have to dance in the middle of the circle. So, Smithy and Ted were in there. By the end of the World Cup, they were dancing every time. The last one was at the captain’s run before the final.

I still remember the first training run at Linfield Park, home of the Linwood Rugby Club. You could immediately sense we were going to be okay. These girls are excited. They’ve got huge ability. They understand what we’re doing. It’s all very well to sell the style of the play; it’s a little more difficult to develop the skills to be able to do it. You need dedicated learners.

In that very first session, we were teaching them to pass closer to the opposition. The players were used to passing a long way from the defenders, which allowed the opposition to slide off onto the next attacker. Back in the day, we were taught to pass off the inside foot and swing away from the pass.

That was then. We now wanted them square, passing without having to take the ball back in a swinging movement. No backward ‘tick’. To pass off either foot, or even with your feet in the air, and to be close to the tackler.

To picture what I mean, if you’re standing behind the passer, you shouldn’t be able to see the ball at the start of the pass.

After you’ve passed, you’re so close to the defender you’re able to block her. And then we wanted everyone coming forward to support the ball carrier as if their lives depended on it.

We filmed the activities from end on, and I was amazed. The players were passing in waves going down the field and from behind I couldn’t see the ball. They’d picked it up as quickly as that. I started thinking, My throwaway line about winning at Eden Park in front of 40,000 people may become reality. That whole week was fantastic.

What you find with every player, particularly the girls, is that they need logic. If you’re showing something new, and you ask them to do it, they’ve got to know why it’s appropriate to the sort of game that we’re playing.

Once they know why, they give everything to it, and the girls were no exception.

We used a lot of video at training and a lot of immediate feedback. We’d also show some clips from the 2021 tour and then we’d practise skills that would enable us to play in a new, attacking way, with everyone moving forward, and supporting.

All the drills were filmed. We’d have a look at them on video. You can often see things that needed to be done better. A player might say, ‘I struggled to pass off the wrong foot.’ We’d keep working on it. Kept encouraging them. ‘We’ve got a lot of time girls. It’s seven months till we beat England at Eden Park.’

The Tact-Mat was a great learning tool. The markings on a rugby field are printed on a 2.4-metre by 1.3-metre mat. You put two sets of small discs down that are numbered 1 to 15.

Wes Clarke brought along his mat. Sometimes we used it as a training aid at practice. We often worked with it back at the meeting room in the hotel and always at halftime in games.

Often, we’d get on the bus after training and one of the players would get up and say, ‘Girls, we weren’t too good at that new stuff today. At 7.30 up in the team room, we’re on the tactical mat.’

They’d all turn up. Whitney, Wes and I would join them, but normally we wouldn’t have to say too much. The girls would work it out themselves. ‘Where should you be? What are you going to do? Show us that.’ We coaches might ask them a question, but generally they ran it themselves. They are hugely dedicated to learning. They needed no prompting.

And then came the shock of our red head/blue head training at our Thursday sessions. Red head/blue head was a concept introduced to the All Blacks in 2010. The team’s mental skills coach, Gilbert Enoka, consulted a former Rhodes Scholar from Christchurch, a motivational psychologist called Ceri Evans, who had played football for New Zealand.

Evans explained how a red head was characterised by feelings of anxiety and doubt, finding it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. It can happen to the best.

Richie McCaw has said that in the 2011 World Cup