Darren Shand

Suddenly we've got international sponsors.

We've got fans with different expectations.

We've got the media with different expectations.

Social media is starting to grow.

And so everything outside of the game had got a whole lot bigger than it wasn't just a matter of turning up, put the juice on, play a game anymore.

So they created a new role, and that was a general manager's role.

So rather than being a manager, you're actually a leader, which is quite a distinction.

And I know we'll come to some of the details of that later.

But in essence, when I first started, I was Graham Henry's boss.

And so I know now with the current situation, they're looking to appoint someone as a high performance director, I think, which will be similar.

Sometimes in football, I think they call it the technical director or the sporting director or something like that.

So it was really to, I guess, provide, and in short, how Graham and I worked is he said, I just want to coach, can you do everything else?

And I guess that was how we sort of summarised it.

You know, he'll look after the things that happen on the grass and I take care of everything else.

And in the end, we did that not quite hand in hand, but side by side.

Yeah, I was part of the executive of New Zealand Rugby as well.

But that was important.

I guess if you had to summarize it, because New Zealand rugby, you've got the various departments, community, commercial, professional, Buell Blacks was a business category, and I'm effectively the CEO, because I'm reporting to that side of the business to make sure things happen.

And that morphed and changed and moved during the period with different coaches.

We set it up differently.