THE QUESTIONS KEPT COMING FOR IAN FOSTER. Three times he was asked if he was the right man to take the All Blacks forward.
In the end it required a media representative from New Zealand Rugby to point out that he had already answered the query.
“I just want to talk about the test match,” said Foster when he was asked about his future.
On the contentious subject of Andrew Porter’s yellow card, he was asked if it is now a lottery whether red or yellows are dished out. “Yes,” he said.
Again, his numbers did not come up tonight. He has a win ratio of 67 per cent, the lowest by an All Blacks coach in the professional era.
“New Zealanders have probably got to realise that this was a very good Irish team; they deserve their time in the sun,” said Foster graciously.
“For some reason we’re just not as calm,” he continued. “In the defence area we’re getting a bit fidgety, there’s a few holes and Ireland aren’t a team you can let get behind because that is when they play an up-tempo game.”
Foster replaced his captain, Sam Cane, with 15 minutes remaining: “We were just trying to keep the momentum going so it wasn’t a reflection on Sam or his leadership, we had just got momentum and lost it again and felt we needed to make a couple of tweaks.”