Hurricanes coach Jason Holland Photo: PHOTOSPORT
New All Blacks assistant coach Jason Holland says trust is a key for the new coaching setup.
Hurricanes coach Holland, Blues coach Leon MacDonald, current All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan and Crusaders assistant Scott Hansen have been confirmed as Scott Robertson's assistants.
Holland, who was an assistant to Roberston at Canterbury for four years before moving to the Hurricanes in 2016, is looking forward to working with Robertson again.
"I know he'll give us all the trust to do what we do as far as coaching what we want to coach.
"The reasons he's got us on board is that he thinks we can do a job in a certain area and he'll back us to do that."
Robertson has obviously brought together a team that he knows well and knows can work well together. Holland is excited by that.
"There's some great rugby heads in there and there's an attitude amongst those boys, having worked with most of them, that you want to be challenged and that you're happy to go into someone else's area of the game and challenge them in their area of the game.
"We all have our own ideas around what we want to do and our philosophies are pretty similar but we'll be in a space where we challenge each other.
"It gives you confidence to get in and coach what you want to coach."
Holland isn't expecting to much of a change in the way the All Blacks play the game when they take over.
"As New Zealand rugby players we've got lots of skilful players and awesome athletes and so maximising those things will be massive as to how we play."
Scott Robertson and Jason Holland Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Holland says the game globally is very competitive and so they need to focus on the All Blacks point of difference.
"What are the things that other teams may not be able to compete with and so it's making sure you use the best qualities of the players."
"There are only small margins that make the big difference in all footy."
Holland was an assistant coach at Munster, Canterbury and then the Hurricanes before taking over as Hurricanes head coach in 2020, he's looking forward to now taking on a more specialist role again.
"It will be a bit of a change, I enjoy the technical and tactical aspect of making players better and you have a bit more time as an assistant to do that.
Holland will assist MacDonald with the attack role in the All Blacks coaching set-up.
"Also trying to break down teams and find little weaknesses in defences is what gets me excited.