COACHING A NEW team called the NZ Irish Barbarians at the Global Youth 7s in Auckland last weekend was a lovely way for 33-year-old Irishman Ian Robinson to finish his seventh season living and coaching in New Zealand.
And what a season it was.
Back in 2019, Dublin man Robinson packed in his job with Sherry FitzGerald and moved to the other side of the world to chase his dream of being a rugby coach.
This year, Robinson was head coach of King’s College as they won the prestigious Auckland 1A First XV competition, renowned as one of the leading schools titles in rugby.
Robinson, a St Mary’s College RFC clubman in Ireland, has enjoyed an intriguing journey in Kiwi rugby. Having started out in Christchurch, he has coached teams like the Canterbury U16s, Blues U18s and U20s, and Auckland B along the way.
Since 2024, he has been the full-time head coach of King’s College, a highly-regarded private school, and lives on site with his partner, Natasha, and four-year-old daughter, Evie Jane.
Robinson is ambitious to keep pushing his coaching career to the next level, but he is loving his work with King’s and is sure that he wouldn’t have progressed as much if he hadn’t made the move to New Zealand seven years ago.
“If I had stayed in Ireland, I’d still be selling houses,” he says.
He enjoyed the chance to go back to his roots by leading the NZ Irish Barbarians, the brainchild of Dublin native Killian Armstrong, who moved to New Zealand with his family when he was six and came through Sacred Heart College in Auckland.
Armstrong wanted to help young players in Australia and New Zealand to connect with their Irish heritage, so he launched the team this year, unearthing an array of talented U18 players who were born in Ireland or who have Irish parents or grandparents, as well as getting Robinson involved as head coach for the well-regarded Global Youths 7s.
“These players want to have that Irish connection, they want to have an understanding of Irish culture,” says Robinson of the team, which included youngsters who have played in the Auckland 1A schools competition or are making progress in rugby league.
Robinson has never lost touch with home. He has Waterford Crystal on display in his home in King’s College – his mother and grandmother hail from the Déise – and there’s a picture from Grogan’s Pub in Dublin, his favourite spot for a Guinness, on the wall.
Robinson is active in the WhatsApp groups from St Mary’s school and club, with his friends regularly asking him when he’s coming home to coach in Irish rugby.
But he has a good thing going in Auckland.
“If you said to me seven years ago that in seven years, I’d be coaching full-time, working with some of the best athletes in the country, and have the resources we have, I’d have been like, ‘You’re crazy, what are you talking about?’” says Robinson.
Robinson [fourth from right] with the rest of the Blues U20 staff. Ian Robinson / InstagramIan Robinson / Instagram / Instagram
When France were in Auckland last summer during their Test series against the All Blacks, they trained at King’s College and were highly impressed with the quality of the facilities.
King’s were crowned 1A champions after beating St Kentigern College in front of a crowd of around 10,000 people at Eden Park in August, celebrating with a haka as Robinson watched on proudly.
His journey in New Zealand started as backs coach of the Marist Albion RFC U20 team in Christchurch, his fellow St Mary’s man Brent Pope having helped him to make the connection.
Robinson was soon working as an assistant coach with St Andrew’s College, one of the leading schools in Christchurch, and even though the pandemic struck during his first season with them, Robinson stuck to his plan.
“COVID was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. “I was already in New Zealand and my visas just kept getting extended.
“I was lucky, I had no ties back then. I didn’t have my own family. I just was on my own, so I could grind it out.”
He used the initial lockdown to deepen his study of the game, analysing 100s of top-level games, a practice he continues to this day. Robinson is currently using his off-season to do deep dives on the Springboks, France, England, Ireland, and New Zealand, breaking down their attack, defence, kicking games, and more. He even codes All-Ireland League games on top of all his analysis work with King’s.
When rugby got back underway in New Zealand in 2020, Robinson worked alongside head coach Mikae Tuu’u – a former Auckland player – as St Andrew’s marched to the school’s first-ever Canterbury championship, coming back from 20 points down to beat the mighty Christchurch Boys’ High School in the final.
Robinson’s involvement with the local Marist Albion club in Christchurch grew over the following years as he began as a skills coach and analyst under former All Black Ben Blair and ended up being the team’s co-coach. They got to three finals and won two of them.
After five happy years in St Andrew’s, Robinson felt he needed to look for a new role. He applied for the New Zealand Schools job, as well as one in the Auckland Marist club, and was interviewed for both but missed out.
He was wondering where he could turn next when an agent gave him a nudge to apply for the King’s College job, which meant an interview with former Hurricanes and Northampton boss, Chris Boyd, who has recently been consulting for Munster.
“It was brutal!” says Robinson.
“He’s so knowledgeable and his questioning was so on the money about everything I’ve experienced.
“He said things like, ‘You’re a white guy in Christchurch, which is a predominantly white city, how are you going to deal with the Pacific and Maori culture here in Auckland?”
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King’s College in New Zealand. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Robinson made a convincing case, got the gig, and immediately set about making two key appointments in his coaching staff.
First, he got Siosaia Fifita, who played professionally in Japan and whose kids were all coming through King’s, because he was an excellent forwards coach and also a “really top-class role model” for players with Pacific Island roots.
And then he eventually convinced former All Blacks centre Pita Alatini to come on board. Alatini was born in Tonga before moving to New Zealand and coming through King’s College, where he remains the “poster boy” of the school.
“He is the epitome of what a great, Pasifika man should be,” says Robinson.
“He works hard, he looks after people, but the care factor that he shows is phenomenal.”
Things have gone well for Robinson and his coaching team, with Alatini installed as King’s head of rugby and now set to move into the on-site house next door to Robinson’s as he combines with the Irishman in furthering the rugby programme.
“Now we’re like, ‘How do we create the best all-round rugby programme in the country?’” says Robinson.
He compares King’s College to Blackrock College in Ireland and explains that the school’s First XV team is better resourced than some of the semi-professional National Provincial Championship [NPC] men’s sides.
King’s use scholarships to bring talented players in to supplement the boys already in the school. Alatini brought Robinson to his native Tonga twice this year, showing the Irishman authentic Tongan village life, but also allowing them to scout and recruit a young player to join King’s.
“We’re standing in front of his whole school in Tonga and this kid’s on stage and he has just turned 15 that day, and the whole school are singing for him, it’s something out of a fairytale,” says Robinson.
A full scholarship at King’s is worth just over $100,000 NZ a year and this young man is arriving in January for the next three years.
He’s the kind of teenage player that NRL clubs are already circling in the hope of him moving into professional rugby league when he finishes school. It’s not only Australian rugby union that faces major competition from league for its most talented prospects.
In Robinson’s first season, King’s finished fifth. Robinson and the other coaches learned important lessons and put a new plan into place. He spoke with former Munster man Jason Holland, who has just left the All Blacks set-up, about his game models and figured out exactly what kind of team King’s wanted to be.
On the physical side, they set benchmarks for First XV players to hit when they returned for the 2025 season, with markers in the Bronco test, Yo-Yo test, 30-metre sprint, and the power clean. “Actions over words” was the mantra.
Anyone who didn’t come back in good enough shape wasn’t in the team initially. However, Robinson says that two players who hadn’t done the hard work in the off-season eventually earned their places in the side and one of them was key in the 1A final success.
Not that it’s all about trying to be professional. Robinson wants King’s rugby to be enjoyable.
“We’re trying not to make putting their rugby boots on a chore, and then that’s when you get the best out of them, so they’re actually excited to come to training.”
The off-field culture was also important, with a theme of ‘The Road to Kingsland’ because of the school’s name, but also the fact that Eden Park is in a suburb called Kingsland.
Before the season started, the team went away on a training camp where they also undertook a ceremony in which every player and coach showed the squad a photo of themselves from when they started playing rugby.
“We talked about the pressure of the 1A. Kids are under so much scrutiny down here with the coverage and with TikTok. I’m sure it’s the same in the Schools Cup in Ireland. So we said, ‘Why do we play rugby?’”
They all wrote a word to signify their rugby origins on a piece of wood, put them all in a fire pit, burned them down, and collected the ashes in a pot that they then carried with them to every game. After each match, they took some grass from the pitch and sprinkled that into the pot too, a marker of each step of the road to Kingsland.
The plan was to sprinkle all the ashes at Eden Park after winning the final but the stadium staff weren’t keen on that, so Robinson still has the pot in his office. He says he’ll bring it along to the 10-year reunion of their Division 1A-winning squad.
“I’m really driven around trying to learn what it takes to get the best out of someone,” says Robinson of his focus on culture.
“And that doesn’t necessarily just mean on a rugby field. Most of the time, it actually means off the field.”
Robinson’s passion for his work is palpable on a Zoom call from the other side of the world.
New Zealand is a good place for a young coach looking to continue learning, particularly given that professional coaches there are open about sharing their knowledge.
All Blacks boss Scott Robertson’s sons went to St Andrew’s College in Christchurch, so he invited Robinson into his Crusaders set-up on several occasions, while he also praises the likes of Boyd, Holland, and Blues U20s boss Ben Afeaki for helping his development.
Alongside his job in King’s, Robinson has just started a role with the Grammar TEC club in Auckland, so he has plenty on his plate.
He’d love to coach the New Zealand Schools if that opportunity opened up. He sometimes daydreams about winning trophies with St Mary’s school and club. And he thinks it would be amazing to coach in other countries like Japan.
Yet the words of Chris Kerekere, a leadership expert who works in New Zealand rugby circles, always stick with Robinson because the meaning behind them is something he has always believed.
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'If I had stayed in Ireland, I'd still be selling houses'
COACHING A NEW team called the NZ Irish Barbarians at the Global Youth 7s in Auckland last weekend was a lovely way for 33-year-old Irishman Ian Robinson to finish his seventh season living and coaching in New Zealand.
And what a season it was.
Back in 2019, Dublin man Robinson packed in his job with Sherry FitzGerald and moved to the other side of the world to chase his dream of being a rugby coach.
This year, Robinson was head coach of King’s College as they won the prestigious Auckland 1A First XV competition, renowned as one of the leading schools titles in rugby.
Robinson, a St Mary’s College RFC clubman in Ireland, has enjoyed an intriguing journey in Kiwi rugby. Having started out in Christchurch, he has coached teams like the Canterbury U16s, Blues U18s and U20s, and Auckland B along the way.
Since 2024, he has been the full-time head coach of King’s College, a highly-regarded private school, and lives on site with his partner, Natasha, and four-year-old daughter, Evie Jane.
Robinson is ambitious to keep pushing his coaching career to the next level, but he is loving his work with King’s and is sure that he wouldn’t have progressed as much if he hadn’t made the move to New Zealand seven years ago.
“If I had stayed in Ireland, I’d still be selling houses,” he says.
He enjoyed the chance to go back to his roots by leading the NZ Irish Barbarians, the brainchild of Dublin native Killian Armstrong, who moved to New Zealand with his family when he was six and came through Sacred Heart College in Auckland.
Armstrong wanted to help young players in Australia and New Zealand to connect with their Irish heritage, so he launched the team this year, unearthing an array of talented U18 players who were born in Ireland or who have Irish parents or grandparents, as well as getting Robinson involved as head coach for the well-regarded Global Youths 7s.
“These players want to have that Irish connection, they want to have an understanding of Irish culture,” says Robinson of the team, which included youngsters who have played in the Auckland 1A schools competition or are making progress in rugby league.
Robinson has never lost touch with home. He has Waterford Crystal on display in his home in King’s College – his mother and grandmother hail from the Déise – and there’s a picture from Grogan’s Pub in Dublin, his favourite spot for a Guinness, on the wall.
Robinson is active in the WhatsApp groups from St Mary’s school and club, with his friends regularly asking him when he’s coming home to coach in Irish rugby.
But he has a good thing going in Auckland.
“If you said to me seven years ago that in seven years, I’d be coaching full-time, working with some of the best athletes in the country, and have the resources we have, I’d have been like, ‘You’re crazy, what are you talking about?’” says Robinson.
When France were in Auckland last summer during their Test series against the All Blacks, they trained at King’s College and were highly impressed with the quality of the facilities.
King’s were crowned 1A champions after beating St Kentigern College in front of a crowd of around 10,000 people at Eden Park in August, celebrating with a haka as Robinson watched on proudly.
His journey in New Zealand started as backs coach of the Marist Albion RFC U20 team in Christchurch, his fellow St Mary’s man Brent Pope having helped him to make the connection.
Robinson was soon working as an assistant coach with St Andrew’s College, one of the leading schools in Christchurch, and even though the pandemic struck during his first season with them, Robinson stuck to his plan.
“COVID was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. “I was already in New Zealand and my visas just kept getting extended.
“I was lucky, I had no ties back then. I didn’t have my own family. I just was on my own, so I could grind it out.”
He used the initial lockdown to deepen his study of the game, analysing 100s of top-level games, a practice he continues to this day. Robinson is currently using his off-season to do deep dives on the Springboks, France, England, Ireland, and New Zealand, breaking down their attack, defence, kicking games, and more. He even codes All-Ireland League games on top of all his analysis work with King’s.
When rugby got back underway in New Zealand in 2020, Robinson worked alongside head coach Mikae Tuu’u – a former Auckland player – as St Andrew’s marched to the school’s first-ever Canterbury championship, coming back from 20 points down to beat the mighty Christchurch Boys’ High School in the final.
Robinson’s involvement with the local Marist Albion club in Christchurch grew over the following years as he began as a skills coach and analyst under former All Black Ben Blair and ended up being the team’s co-coach. They got to three finals and won two of them.
After five happy years in St Andrew’s, Robinson felt he needed to look for a new role. He applied for the New Zealand Schools job, as well as one in the Auckland Marist club, and was interviewed for both but missed out.
He was wondering where he could turn next when an agent gave him a nudge to apply for the King’s College job, which meant an interview with former Hurricanes and Northampton boss, Chris Boyd, who has recently been consulting for Munster.
“It was brutal!” says Robinson.
“He’s so knowledgeable and his questioning was so on the money about everything I’ve experienced.
“He said things like, ‘You’re a white guy in Christchurch, which is a predominantly white city, how are you going to deal with the Pacific and Maori culture here in Auckland?”
Robinson made a convincing case, got the gig, and immediately set about making two key appointments in his coaching staff.
First, he got Siosaia Fifita, who played professionally in Japan and whose kids were all coming through King’s, because he was an excellent forwards coach and also a “really top-class role model” for players with Pacific Island roots.
And then he eventually convinced former All Blacks centre Pita Alatini to come on board. Alatini was born in Tonga before moving to New Zealand and coming through King’s College, where he remains the “poster boy” of the school.
“He is the epitome of what a great, Pasifika man should be,” says Robinson.
“He works hard, he looks after people, but the care factor that he shows is phenomenal.”
Things have gone well for Robinson and his coaching team, with Alatini installed as King’s head of rugby and now set to move into the on-site house next door to Robinson’s as he combines with the Irishman in furthering the rugby programme.
“Now we’re like, ‘How do we create the best all-round rugby programme in the country?’” says Robinson.
He compares King’s College to Blackrock College in Ireland and explains that the school’s First XV team is better resourced than some of the semi-professional National Provincial Championship [NPC] men’s sides.
King’s use scholarships to bring talented players in to supplement the boys already in the school. Alatini brought Robinson to his native Tonga twice this year, showing the Irishman authentic Tongan village life, but also allowing them to scout and recruit a young player to join King’s.
“We’re standing in front of his whole school in Tonga and this kid’s on stage and he has just turned 15 that day, and the whole school are singing for him, it’s something out of a fairytale,” says Robinson.
A full scholarship at King’s is worth just over $100,000 NZ a year and this young man is arriving in January for the next three years.
He’s the kind of teenage player that NRL clubs are already circling in the hope of him moving into professional rugby league when he finishes school. It’s not only Australian rugby union that faces major competition from league for its most talented prospects.
In Robinson’s first season, King’s finished fifth. Robinson and the other coaches learned important lessons and put a new plan into place. He spoke with former Munster man Jason Holland, who has just left the All Blacks set-up, about his game models and figured out exactly what kind of team King’s wanted to be.
On the physical side, they set benchmarks for First XV players to hit when they returned for the 2025 season, with markers in the Bronco test, Yo-Yo test, 30-metre sprint, and the power clean. “Actions over words” was the mantra.
Anyone who didn’t come back in good enough shape wasn’t in the team initially. However, Robinson says that two players who hadn’t done the hard work in the off-season eventually earned their places in the side and one of them was key in the 1A final success.
Not that it’s all about trying to be professional. Robinson wants King’s rugby to be enjoyable.
“We’re trying not to make putting their rugby boots on a chore, and then that’s when you get the best out of them, so they’re actually excited to come to training.”
The off-field culture was also important, with a theme of ‘The Road to Kingsland’ because of the school’s name, but also the fact that Eden Park is in a suburb called Kingsland.
Before the season started, the team went away on a training camp where they also undertook a ceremony in which every player and coach showed the squad a photo of themselves from when they started playing rugby.
“We talked about the pressure of the 1A. Kids are under so much scrutiny down here with the coverage and with TikTok. I’m sure it’s the same in the Schools Cup in Ireland. So we said, ‘Why do we play rugby?’”
They all wrote a word to signify their rugby origins on a piece of wood, put them all in a fire pit, burned them down, and collected the ashes in a pot that they then carried with them to every game. After each match, they took some grass from the pitch and sprinkled that into the pot too, a marker of each step of the road to Kingsland.
The plan was to sprinkle all the ashes at Eden Park after winning the final but the stadium staff weren’t keen on that, so Robinson still has the pot in his office. He says he’ll bring it along to the 10-year reunion of their Division 1A-winning squad.
“I’m really driven around trying to learn what it takes to get the best out of someone,” says Robinson of his focus on culture.
“And that doesn’t necessarily just mean on a rugby field. Most of the time, it actually means off the field.”
Robinson’s passion for his work is palpable on a Zoom call from the other side of the world.
New Zealand is a good place for a young coach looking to continue learning, particularly given that professional coaches there are open about sharing their knowledge.
All Blacks boss Scott Robertson’s sons went to St Andrew’s College in Christchurch, so he invited Robinson into his Crusaders set-up on several occasions, while he also praises the likes of Boyd, Holland, and Blues U20s boss Ben Afeaki for helping his development.
Alongside his job in King’s, Robinson has just started a role with the Grammar TEC club in Auckland, so he has plenty on his plate.
He’d love to coach the New Zealand Schools if that opportunity opened up. He sometimes daydreams about winning trophies with St Mary’s school and club. And he thinks it would be amazing to coach in other countries like Japan.
Yet the words of Chris Kerekere, a leadership expert who works in New Zealand rugby circles, always stick with Robinson because the meaning behind them is something he has always believed.
“Just water where your feet are.”
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Auckland Ian Robinson Irish Abroad King's College New Zealand St Mary's