August 22, 2024 • 10 mins
NZ Herald Rugby Writer Gregor Paul joined D'Arcy Waldegrave to discuss the sudden departure of Leon MacDonald from the All Blacks coaching staff.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcie Wildergrave
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It be huge news today in the world of All
Blacks Rugby on the eve e, then disappearing to what
is going to be a very very hard test of
their resolve and skill over in South Africa. Assistant coach
of the All Blacks, Leon and McDonald has walked from
the camp. We're joined now by Gregor Paul, respected long
(00:32):
time at rugby writer from The Herald. Gregor, Welcome to
the program. Did you see that one coming.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Not at this particular juncture. No, Darcy, I didn't. I
would be lying through my teeth as I told you
that I thought that would be an announcement being made
today or any time in the near future. I would, however, say,
I'm not overly surprised that Leon, that Leon and Ras
(01:02):
are not connecting all that well. That bit doesn't necessarily
surprised me, because I think there's a little bit of
history here. I've always had a little skeptical sense about
how aligned these two were. They worked together at the Crusaders,
and then they didn't work together at the Crusaders, you
may recall, So the fact that they've found that they're
(01:23):
not on the same page. Isn't the surprise, but the
fact that they've arrived at that point barely four or
five weeks into the season. Wow, I mean, how could
they not have worked out that they were not compatible?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, the release says they've been talking about this for weeks,
so something happened or they got a sense of it
and tried to iron it out before South Africa. Because
the timing is bizarre. It's not the ideal timing before
you go on, as I said before, what is an
extraordinary important to it. It's going to i'd say, make
(01:56):
or break Razer's career. But it's right up there, isn't it?
And it too now to split?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, yeah, look, it's that bit's genuinely fast. The fact
that they've been in discussions apparently for the last two
or three weeks makes me wonder. This would suggest that
they've been in conflict or not necessarily been working well
together almost from day one. Really, when you look at
(02:22):
the timing and the limited time the All Blacks have
had together, you would suspect here that this has been
a relationship that's never been right. Once they got up
and running and got their hands on the players. I
mean presumably in the process of selecting the team, through
the Super Rugby season, planning the season. None of the
problems or cracks that have appeared in the relationship were
(02:45):
presumably not prevalent to either of them at that stage.
And it's only now that they've come together and they're
on the training ground, as it were, and the pressure
of being together or putting a team on the park
or preparing a team has found out that while we're
wildly incompatible, we're clearly reached a point of an unresolvable
relationship breakdown or professional relationship breakdown, and that to me
(03:10):
is well, it's either a staggering failure of due diligence
that they didn't realize that they were going to get
to that point, or something has happened inside that camp
that has made one or both of them realize that
they're really not the people that they thought they were,
or they're not the cultures that they both thought that
(03:31):
they were.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
When you look at that and you know that in
the press release nothing really has been offered as to
the cause of the split, it creates a vacuum. Gregor Paul.
When a vacuum is created the theories come out everywhere
and they get sucked into said vacuum. So they're asking
for a lot of people out there to start conjecture
(03:55):
around what's actually going on within the camp and in
the heads and of the players and the coaches. I mean,
that's pretty dangerous posity to be in.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, it is. I guess the alternative though, is that,
you know what was the alternative, Darcy? They could go
with the ubiquitous. You know, Leon has left for family reasons.
You know, he wants to spend more time at home,
which would have been equally suspect. You know, five weeks
into the season, we'd have been having even more questions.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
So a little bit of quos I suppose that they
haven't shied away from at least confronting the big picture
term that you know, there's there's professional.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Tension between them that they weren't on the same page professionally. Now,
fair play for them for doing that, but they're probably
stuck for legal reasons and all sorts of reasons of
why they're not going to get into the nitty gritty
the exact circumstances by which those two started to deviate.
(04:56):
And you're right, we will speculate. I don't know how
accurate any of us will ever be though without having
that inside knowledge, but they're probably I suspect a couple
of areas that you could look at, whether they were
aligned on selection about of players, but different views about players,
you know, where they playing, the type of rugby that
(05:17):
Leon thought they were going to be playing, or I
don't know, has has there been some kind of highly
specific moment that has made Leon think I'm not sure
if if I'm the right guy for this job.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
The fat Greg Paul that he wasn't quoted or had
a quote attributed him in that release. That also to me,
it takes my interest. Was normally there's a something from
the outgoing personality, where it be a player, coach, whatever,
something that says, look, I'm not doing as you mentioned before,
there was nothing in there, and that was glaringly obvious
(05:53):
in its absence.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, you know, because when you're reading about a mutual
decision has made, it doesn't feel overly mutual when you
don't hear from the other party, you know what I mean,
Like you would normally have an agreed statement that both
parties would make to no matter what has happened. If
you're going to publicly state there's a mutual agreement, then
you would typically have both parties confirming, wishing each other
(06:19):
all the best, saying, look, you know we tried, hasn't
worked out, but all the best to the all blacks
and ditto. You'd expect the same, you know, from Razor
back to Leon, which we got, but we didn't get
Leon's version of events or his voice in the story,
and he's not been available to the media to speak,
so again we'd have to you know, we will inevitably
(06:39):
speculate a little bit. Was it as mutual as it appears?
Did Leon walk out? Or was Leon kind of walking
out and got pushed out together at the same time.
We won't know the answer because I suspect they'll be
fairly tight legal conditions around his departure that will prevent
too much more being said.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Speak knowing you the Gregor Paul, and if he is Tom,
you'll be all writing the book around it. I've seen
it happen before you get in there. How up seating
is this scrigapool for the actual players themselves? Because this
is all sideline stuff. We want to know how they're
going to perform in South Africa. This is as massive
as I keep saying. So as far as this tumult,
how does that affect the playing staff on the play
(07:21):
on the way and over.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
There, Well, you'd have to wonder if they've reached the
point where Razor has decided that he doesn't want to
take Leon with them to South Africa and then they
need to part company, you would have to imagine that
some of the tension in that relationship has been apparent
to the players. You'd have to believe that. You know,
(07:44):
if I think in any workplace, if you're conscious of
the fact that there are two managers who are not
connecting well, who are not aligned, we've probably all seen
it in our own workplace, a darcy where you're conscious
of that and it drives a bit of tension and
a bit of uncertainty, and you know that it's not
the right thing for the organization when you get to
that point. So presumably the players, while they may be
(08:06):
on settled by what has happened, if it was overtly
impacting on the training ground or creating a level of
toxicity or awkwardness in the environment, they will probably embrace
the fact. And this is not personal, but they will
embrace the fact that whatever the problem has been, it
is being dealt with, and a bit of cuteos to
(08:27):
the Old Blacks or to Raiser and to New Zealand
Rugby here because they've obviously decided that this is not
in the team's best interest to try to patch this up.
Whatever the problem is. They've decided it's unresolvable. We need
to act now. We need to act decisively and quickly.
And while it will be unsettling for the team to
(08:47):
get on the plane with that big change having happened,
it's probably ultimately in the longer term, or even in
the shorter term, a better option to deal with that
quickly and effectively get it out of the way, recalibrate
over in South Africa, because I don't think it'll be
as big an adjustment because they've got a really large
coaching teams.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Large wow, sorry, carry on.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
They've got Tennessey Ellison and Scott Hansen who will take
over the duties of Leo McDonald's. So it's not as
if you know, you're suddenly going from you know who
and earth are we going to have dealing with that.
There's also, to be honest, there's also been a sense
of are they overpopulated in the coaching department anyway? Was
it a little bit of too many coaches getting in
each other's way. Was that something Leon was feeling. Was
(09:35):
he feeling a little threatened because Tennessey Ellison was a
kind of late arrival to that coaching group and his
role appeared to be expanding a little bit in terms
of the amount of time he was spending with the team.
I mean, all of these factors play. I think they've
probably taken a view that they're not going to be
detrimentally impacted or going to South Africa l liked on
(09:55):
coaching personnel, so they'll feel that they'll be able to handle,
you know, that side of things without too much impact.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
For more from Sports Talk, listen Lived and Used to
Said B from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcie Wildergrave
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It be huge news today in the world of All
Blacks Rugby on the eve e, then disappearing to what
is going to be a very very hard test of
their resolve and skill over in South Africa. Assistant coach
of the All Blacks, Leon and McDonald has walked from
the camp. We're joined now by Gregor Paul, respected long
(00:32):
time at rugby writer from The Herald. Gregor, Welcome to
the program. Did you see that one coming.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Not at this particular juncture. No, Darcy, I didn't. I
would be lying through my teeth as I told you
that I thought that would be an announcement being made
today or any time in the near future. I would, however, say,
I'm not overly surprised that Leon, that Leon and Ras
(01:02):
are not connecting all that well. That bit doesn't necessarily
surprised me, because I think there's a little bit of
history here. I've always had a little skeptical sense about
how aligned these two were. They worked together at the Crusaders,
and then they didn't work together at the Crusaders, you
may recall, So the fact that they've found that they're
(01:23):
not on the same page. Isn't the surprise, but the
fact that they've arrived at that point barely four or
five weeks into the season. Wow, I mean, how could
they not have worked out that they were not compatible?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, the release says they've been talking about this for weeks,
so something happened or they got a sense of it
and tried to iron it out before South Africa. Because
the timing is bizarre. It's not the ideal timing before
you go on, as I said before, what is an
extraordinary important to it. It's going to i'd say, make
(01:56):
or break Razer's career. But it's right up there, isn't it?
And it too now to split?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, yeah, look, it's that bit's genuinely fast. The fact
that they've been in discussions apparently for the last two
or three weeks makes me wonder. This would suggest that
they've been in conflict or not necessarily been working well
together almost from day one. Really, when you look at
(02:22):
the timing and the limited time the All Blacks have
had together, you would suspect here that this has been
a relationship that's never been right. Once they got up
and running and got their hands on the players. I
mean presumably in the process of selecting the team, through
the Super Rugby season, planning the season. None of the
problems or cracks that have appeared in the relationship were
(02:45):
presumably not prevalent to either of them at that stage.
And it's only now that they've come together and they're
on the training ground, as it were, and the pressure
of being together or putting a team on the park
or preparing a team has found out that while we're
wildly incompatible, we're clearly reached a point of an unresolvable
relationship breakdown or professional relationship breakdown, and that to me
(03:10):
is well, it's either a staggering failure of due diligence
that they didn't realize that they were going to get
to that point, or something has happened inside that camp
that has made one or both of them realize that
they're really not the people that they thought they were,
or they're not the cultures that they both thought that
(03:31):
they were.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
When you look at that and you know that in
the press release nothing really has been offered as to
the cause of the split, it creates a vacuum. Gregor Paul.
When a vacuum is created the theories come out everywhere
and they get sucked into said vacuum. So they're asking
for a lot of people out there to start conjecture
(03:55):
around what's actually going on within the camp and in
the heads and of the players and the coaches. I mean,
that's pretty dangerous posity to be in.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, it is. I guess the alternative though, is that,
you know what was the alternative, Darcy? They could go
with the ubiquitous. You know, Leon has left for family reasons.
You know, he wants to spend more time at home,
which would have been equally suspect. You know, five weeks
into the season, we'd have been having even more questions.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
So a little bit of quos I suppose that they
haven't shied away from at least confronting the big picture
term that you know, there's there's professional.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Tension between them that they weren't on the same page professionally. Now,
fair play for them for doing that, but they're probably
stuck for legal reasons and all sorts of reasons of
why they're not going to get into the nitty gritty
the exact circumstances by which those two started to deviate.
(04:56):
And you're right, we will speculate. I don't know how
accurate any of us will ever be though without having
that inside knowledge, but they're probably I suspect a couple
of areas that you could look at, whether they were
aligned on selection about of players, but different views about players,
you know, where they playing, the type of rugby that
(05:17):
Leon thought they were going to be playing, or I
don't know, has has there been some kind of highly
specific moment that has made Leon think I'm not sure
if if I'm the right guy for this job.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
The fat Greg Paul that he wasn't quoted or had
a quote attributed him in that release. That also to me,
it takes my interest. Was normally there's a something from
the outgoing personality, where it be a player, coach, whatever,
something that says, look, I'm not doing as you mentioned before,
there was nothing in there, and that was glaringly obvious
(05:53):
in its absence.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, you know, because when you're reading about a mutual
decision has made, it doesn't feel overly mutual when you
don't hear from the other party, you know what I mean,
Like you would normally have an agreed statement that both
parties would make to no matter what has happened. If
you're going to publicly state there's a mutual agreement, then
you would typically have both parties confirming, wishing each other
(06:19):
all the best, saying, look, you know we tried, hasn't
worked out, but all the best to the all blacks
and ditto. You'd expect the same, you know, from Razor
back to Leon, which we got, but we didn't get
Leon's version of events or his voice in the story,
and he's not been available to the media to speak,
so again we'd have to you know, we will inevitably
(06:39):
speculate a little bit. Was it as mutual as it appears?
Did Leon walk out? Or was Leon kind of walking
out and got pushed out together at the same time.
We won't know the answer because I suspect they'll be
fairly tight legal conditions around his departure that will prevent
too much more being said.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Speak knowing you the Gregor Paul, and if he is Tom,
you'll be all writing the book around it. I've seen
it happen before you get in there. How up seating
is this scrigapool for the actual players themselves? Because this
is all sideline stuff. We want to know how they're
going to perform in South Africa. This is as massive
as I keep saying. So as far as this tumult,
how does that affect the playing staff on the play
(07:21):
on the way and over.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
There, Well, you'd have to wonder if they've reached the
point where Razor has decided that he doesn't want to
take Leon with them to South Africa and then they
need to part company, you would have to imagine that
some of the tension in that relationship has been apparent
to the players. You'd have to believe that. You know,
(07:44):
if I think in any workplace, if you're conscious of
the fact that there are two managers who are not
connecting well, who are not aligned, we've probably all seen
it in our own workplace, a darcy where you're conscious
of that and it drives a bit of tension and
a bit of uncertainty, and you know that it's not
the right thing for the organization when you get to
that point. So presumably the players, while they may be
(08:06):
on settled by what has happened, if it was overtly
impacting on the training ground or creating a level of
toxicity or awkwardness in the environment, they will probably embrace
the fact. And this is not personal, but they will
embrace the fact that whatever the problem has been, it
is being dealt with, and a bit of cuteos to
(08:27):
the Old Blacks or to Raiser and to New Zealand
Rugby here because they've obviously decided that this is not
in the team's best interest to try to patch this up.
Whatever the problem is. They've decided it's unresolvable. We need
to act now. We need to act decisively and quickly.
And while it will be unsettling for the team to
(08:47):
get on the plane with that big change having happened,
it's probably ultimately in the longer term, or even in
the shorter term, a better option to deal with that
quickly and effectively get it out of the way, recalibrate
over in South Africa, because I don't think it'll be
as big an adjustment because they've got a really large
coaching teams.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Large wow, sorry, carry on.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
They've got Tennessey Ellison and Scott Hansen who will take
over the duties of Leo McDonald's. So it's not as
if you know, you're suddenly going from you know who
and earth are we going to have dealing with that.
There's also, to be honest, there's also been a sense
of are they overpopulated in the coaching department anyway? Was
it a little bit of too many coaches getting in
each other's way. Was that something Leon was feeling. Was
(09:35):
he feeling a little threatened because Tennessey Ellison was a
kind of late arrival to that coaching group and his
role appeared to be expanding a little bit in terms
of the amount of time he was spending with the team.
I mean, all of these factors play. I think they've
probably taken a view that they're not going to be
detrimentally impacted or going to South Africa l liked on
(09:55):
coaching personnel, so they'll feel that they'll be able to handle,
you know, that side of things without too much impact.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
For more from Sports Talk, listen Lived and Used to
Said B from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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