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Chapter 1: What does the All Blacks Manager job entail?
What does the All Blacks Manager job entail?
When I first started, I was Graham Henry's boss. How Graham and I worked is he said, I just want to coach, can you do everything else? The All Blacks was a business category and I'm effectively the CEO. We're a start-up. We had nothing. We found a way to work together. Steve, Wayne, Graham, Gilbert, myself and Sir Brian.
We just found a way and we knew we had to do it differently and we had the courage to try. When we started, and you've got the Fitzy, Zinni era, and they were motivated by fear. Fear of letting the country down. When anyone comes in, you've immediately got 77% winning record across histories. You start with that and you're like, well, if we're going to be afraid of that, we're not going to...
achieve anything that's why the storytelling matters like what will our story be during that period we developed this book for every player leather bound had your all black number on the front of it and after your first test match you'd be presented this book in the middle of the book was a picture of you in your first test match wearing the all black jersey the back of the book was empty blank pages that's where you write your story
What can you say about that whole saga, how Ian was treated, that trip to South Africa?
I was sad that we lost so much of what we were so good at. Mark Robinson was a player that I worked with in the Crusaders. At the end of 23, he's coming around to my house to say, well, you're done, mate. I certainly think my last two or three years weren't my best years. My marriage finished. I was really battling with depression myself. In hindsight, I'm glad I got told to go, actually.
If someone knocked on your door, would you be open to going back in the camp? I honestly don't know. This week on Between Two Bears, we talk to Darren Shand.
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Chapter 2: How did Darren Shand navigate challenges in team culture?
Darren is the longest serving manager in All Blacks history. 20 years in the role, 256 tests, four World Cup campaigns, back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2015. He worked alongside Graeme Henry, Steve Hansen, Wayne Smith and Ian Foster, and now runs his own high-performance consultancy, Winning Teams.
This episode takes you right inside the heart of the All Blacks machine across their most dominant period. Darren is a clean thinker and the insights he shares from having a front row seat at sports highest level make this an incredibly compelling listen. You're going to love this one.
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And Seamus and I are also proud to be dressed by Barkers. Check out their range at barkersonline.co.nz. Enjoy. Darren Shand, welcome to Between Two Bears.
Great to be here, man. Very, very excited to be here, actually.
We're very excited to have you in the One New Zealand studio in Hamilton this morning. First question, have you done more bus or car rides from Auckland to Hamilton across the last 20 years?
Oh, that's an intriguing question. Yeah, we always took the bus to Hamilton. Highlight was always stopping at, is it Pukino? Yeah, yeah. Yes. For the ice creams. For the ice creams, yes.
I don't know whether that technically classifies as still ambassador areas, but we'll claim Pukino is. Yeah, no, I thought it was...
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Chapter 3: What significant events shaped Darren's journey in rugby?
I'm going to love this detail.
Who is 1A? 1B forever. Originally, Graham Henry and latterly, Gilbert Anoka. Wow. Good company. Very good.
That leads nicely into where we want to start. So part of our process at Between the Bears, we ask our guests for some contacts we can talk to about their lives and career. People who know them well, good friends and family. And you provided the most impressiveness of contacts we've ever received. Yeah. 26 names and numbers in total. That's good. So in and amongst them.
So in and amongst family and friends were previous Between Two Bears guests like Steve Chew, Sir Wayne Smith, Ian Foster, Sam Whitelock and Brad Thorne. But there was also Sir Graham Henry, Sir Steve Henson, Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Kevin Mialamu, Ma Nonu, Bowden Barrett and Adi Salvia. It was a real power move.
But I wondered if they all know we now have their contact details and we'll be calling them every day.
You know, it's a high trust model. Yeah. So... Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How did Darren Shand's personal experiences influence his management style?
He didn't actually give me, you know, I had no idea what you wanted or needed. That's good. I thought, well, you know, I always believe go wide so you can go narrow. Yeah. And I wasn't sure the direction you head. And I guess in the role I had, Because I was so general, I wasn't part of the coaching group, but I was.
So I guess my role was so wide that the impact was across lots of people, and maybe not to the depth of the coaches who were living in each other's pocket. I would only live in a coaching meeting and then get out of there. So, yeah, it was hard to sort of say who were the biggest influences.
There was a lot that were influenced at a moderate to high level, but not a whole lot that were like fully in my face the whole time, you know. So it was hard to pick.
Well, the good news for us, I think we've got the guest list sorted for at least the back half of this year, maybe even into early next year. So you've done us a real solid there.
Maybe big enough, yeah. They're going to be coming hard at me now. There was recently, this was a few weeks ago, I think, a reunion, 2011 and 2015, the team all got together. Can you take us behind the scenes? What happens there? Who's organising it? What do you actually do?
Yeah, do you have to organise that as the manager? No, no, I didn't. Oh, good.
Yeah, I missed the cut on the organising committee. There'd been talk for quite a while. In fact, I remember one day Dan Carter's agent said to me, Dan wants you to organise a reunion because he wants a party with the team again. But then just out of the blue, probably the beginning of this year, we got a note through Rob Nickel, actually, through the Players Association.
So that's sort of taken an initiative, got a few people together, and they just pulled it together. And we started at the All Blacks Experience, Ian Jones hosting us, and we actually went through the experience, which was, I guess, personally set up for us
Oh, wow.
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Chapter 5: What was the mission of the All Blacks team?
One of the things I talk a lot to people about is what was the mission of our team? And our mission from our side as a staff was to build self-reliance in our athletes so they could make the best decisions under pressure. So every decision that we're trying to make around the environment is how do we keep building self-reliance here? How do we not do everything for the players?
Chapter 6: How did Darren Shand manage self-reliance in players?
Because by us doing that, we're taking away what we actually need them to be. And I don't know if you recall that match. We were up 21-3. Ben Smith got a yellow card. Australia came straight back, scored two tries like bang, bang. 11 minutes to go, 21-17 up. All momentum with them. We go to halfway, kick-off, turnover, Carter, drop goal. self-reliant, decision-making under pressure.
Chapter 7: What challenges did Darren face during his time with the All Blacks?
Kicked three in his whole career. Won the week before and won in that game. But every training, he'd be shanking them all over the place. But he'd be practising them all the time. And I think that was Carter. He was just the master craftsman.
was his time and he you think of the times that he missed you know like he missed 11 and he missed 7 and when he was you know probably in 7 he was that was really when he was the man you know he was carving um on the back of that 05 lion sing he was really at his peak and pulled the calf in the quarter and then we all know what happened in Wellington in 11 so it was great for him to get that opportunity and he was
He was so loved in the team. He brought a lot of other things to the group. He was great socially. He was a president of the club rooms. He couldn't have a better president. He just brought the energy because he loved them. That meant everything. The bear in the changing room was Dan. He just loved that. And there was a lot of boys like that, Conrad, Richie, Rito. That meant everything.
So that was massive for the group, really.
Well, thanks for giving us all the numbers because we'll get to hear all these stories from them firsthand. I was trying to cover them all now, so you've got nothing left. What I was thinking as you're telling these stories is like what a privilege to have a front row seat to all of these incredible moments. And we're sort of just scratching the surface.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Darren Shand share about his post-All Blacks career?
Can I share one other 15 story there? Please. It nearly sits alongside my match sheet stuff up. I don't think this one ever went public.
for the semi-final before the warm-up I normally go and get two of the match balls and give them I take them into the shed and just get Dan to feel them they feel are these guys not juking us with the pressure or whatever because pressure makes a big difference for the kicker so on this particular day I go to the one of the world rugby officials can I have the two balls I walk into the changing room Dan has a quick look I walk back out and he he's like he takes them away and he comes back to me and goes you've you've adjusted the pressure
You're, you know, you're cheating. I'm like, sorry? And this was around the time when Tom Brady got accused of- Oh, the Flategate. The Flategate, yeah. Oh, the World Rugby official has accused you of- Accused me of, yeah. And I'm like, bro, you're kidding yourself. I've just talked to him. I gave him the day and I brought him out. Nah, I'm going to report this to the match manager.
Monday, I get a letter from World Rugby accusing me of ball tampering. And Flategate, number two. Wow.
What's going on there?
What's the motivation?
I don't know.
I said to him a lot, mate. I went from 22 degrees in a tunnel to five degrees in a changing room. Like pressure can change with temperature, you know. And I certainly didn't do anything like that. I'd never. I was so angry. I got my lawyer. We had a lawyer with us. He said, you've got to write back this. I refute this 100%. Anyway, at the final, he's standing at the door with the two balls again.
I said, can I have the two balls? He goes, yeah, you're not allowed in the changing room. It was just, it was ridiculous, you know, woke gone wrong. But yeah, it was a funny little byline for that week of the final, you know, trying to deal with your reputation being solid, you know, I was like, wow, like really, you know, and just that's, People feel tension in different ways.
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