John Afoa

Yeah, because if we don't, and as a public and as media, if we don't get three wins, they're going to start picking apart that team.

And you know what I mean?

And there's no way you can say that the players won't feel that sort of pressure or that, oh, what's going on here, or doubt.

So I think if they get the three wins, three performances, and even if he makes changes for the large squad or adds guys in, they'll just give him a real springboard and he'll have the backing of the country and the support from the public around going to Africa, which is going to be nearly impossible to go there and get three wins and manage all those midweek games as well.

Yeah, I think just lucky that the guys, most probably those early 2000s from that sort of 0-2-0-3, you know, the likes of Tana and the guys who sort of changed that mindset and changed that situation in the team where, you know, that winning wasn't enough.

It needed to be everything.

It needed to be engagement with the fans.

It needed to be our way we train.

It needed to be what we're doing off the field.

It needed to be.

You know they bring in that Nick Gill, he was a great SNC who had all the signs behind it, had to change the way we trained and prepared for games and then that lead to performance and then performance had to do it every week and you know the schedule can be tough especially at the back end of the year so that whole sort of recovery and the mindset and obviously having Gilbert back then and he's been drafted back into the team

I think it's just that overall picture of everything.

It's such a big task to play sport at a higher level, to do it consistently and to win.

You just need everything going in your favour and making sure you've done everything.

But I think it's everything that comes off the field now where...

You know, they play a Saturday night and they travel to Christchurch.

If they played well, if they haven't played well, you're part of that New Zealand fabric and you're open to whatever.

So if you're there ordering a coffee, you better be ready to chat to the public for 10 minutes.

And that's just part of it.

And you have to smile and you have to do it and you have to be engaged.