Scott Robertson (rugby union)

For other people named Scott Robertson, see Scott Robertson (disambiguation).

Scott Robertson

Robertson in 2023
Birth name	Scott Maurice Robertson
Date of birth	(1974-08-21) 21 August 1974
Place of birth	Tauranga, New Zealand
Height	1.9 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight	109 kg (17 st 2 lb; 240 lb)
School	Mount Maunganui College
Rugby union career
Position(s) Number 8 / Flanker Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 2003–2006 Perpignan 54 (27) 2006–2007 Ricoh Black Rams () Correct as of 31 May 2006 Provincial / State sides Years Team Apps (Points) 1995 Bay of Plenty 16 () 1996–2003 Canterbury 69 () Super Rugby Years Team Apps (Points) 1996–2003 Crusaders 86 (80) Correct as of 31 July 2003 International career Years Team Apps (Points) 1998–2002 New Zealand 23 (20) Correct as of 31 August 2002 Coaching career Years Team 2008–2013 Canterbury (Assistant) 2012–2013 Brazil 2013–2016 Canterbury 2015–2016 New Zealand U20 2017–2023 Crusaders 2022, 2023 Barbarians F.C. 2024– New Zealand

Scott Maurice Robertson (born 21 August 1974) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player. He is the current head coach of the All Blacks, the men's New Zealand national team.

Nicknamed "Razor", he played as a flanker for Bay of Plenty, Perpignan, Canterbury and the Crusaders. He won 23 international caps for New Zealand between 1998 and 2002.

He was the head coach of the New Zealand U20 team, the Canterbury ITM Cup team, and the Crusaders in Super Rugby. With the Crusaders, he won seven consecutive Super Rugby championships, from 2017 to 2023.

During his time as Crusaders coach, not only did he win all seven finals since taking on the role, he achieved a record of 98 wins, 17 losses and 2 draws out of 117 games, making him the most successful Super Rugby coach to date since the competition began.

Playing career

Robertson grew up in Tauranga and attended Mount Maunganui College.

After college, Robertson moved to Europe, where he played for a number of clubs, including Ards (Northern Ireland) and Ayr (Scotland). .

He played for Bay of Plenty. In 1996 he moved to Canterbury to play for the Crusaders in the first year of the Super 12 competition. He played as a flanker. After leaving the Crusaders, he went on to play for Perpignan (France). He eventually moved to Japan where he played for the Ricoh Black Rams, before retiring in 2007.

Coaching career

After retiring from playing, Robertson became the head coach at Sumner Rugby Club in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2004 he was active in establishing an under-19 team at Sumner.

After working as the assistant coach of Canterbury for five years under head coaches Rob Penney (2008–2011) and Tabai Matson (2012), Robertson was appointed Canterbury's head coach in 2013, when they won the Final in the Premiership Division of the ITM Cup. Under his guidance, Canterbury won the competition again in 2015. Robertson was also appointed as head coach of the Brazil national rugby union team for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, as part of a partnership between the Brazilian Rugby Union and the Crusaders.

In 2014, the New Zealand Rugby Union appointed Robertson head coach of the New Zealand Under-20 team, which subsequently won the 2015 World Rugby Under 20 Championship in Italy.

Robertson coached the New Zealand Under-20s in the 2016 World Rugby Under 20 Championship in Manchester, where they failed to make the play-offs.

In June 2016, Robertson was appointed head coach for the Crusaders for the 2017–2019 Super Rugby seasons. During the 2017 season Robertson captured a Super Rugby title with a 25–17 victory over the Lions, becoming only the second first-year coach to win a championship after Dave Rennie in 2012 with conference rivals the Chiefs. On 4 August 2018 he achieved a second straight Super Rugby title with his Crusaders team again defeating the Lions 37–18, again following in the footsteps of Rennie being the second rookie coach to win 2 titles in 2 seasons. In winning the Crusaders' third successive title, Robertson became the first "rookie" Super Rugby coach to win 3 successive titles in their first three seasons as a head coach. The last time a team won three titles in a row was the Crusaders as well between 1998 & 2000, where Wayne Smith led them to two championships before taking up a role with the All Blacks, Robbie Deans would then claim the third title in 2000 beginning one of the most successful periods in the franchise's history.

In 2020, and 2021 Robertson coached the Crusaders to two successful Super Rugby Aotearoa championships. These were both considered a soft-competition on the Super Level due to the pandemic and only playing 5 New Zealand teams, with many of the teams suffering key player losses early on. Since becoming head coach of the Crusaders, the only competition he hasn't won was the 2021 Super Rugby Trans-Tasman add-on, and despite earning 5 wins from 5 games, the Crusaders only ranked third (based on points difference), and missed the final. Following on from the successful Super Rugby Aotearoa campaigns, Robertson again coached the Crusaders to a championship, this time in the maiden Super Rugby Pacific Format in 2022. On 24 June 2023 he coached the Crusaders to a 7th consecutive title with a 20–25 win over the Chiefs, in Hamilton.

Robertson is known for his post victory match break dancing routine

In March 2023, it was announced that he would take over from Ian Foster as head coach of New Zealand from the start of 2024. Though his first All Blacks fixtures as head coach did not occur until 2024, his role as head coach began on 1 November 2023, after the conclusion of the 2023 Rugby World Cup tournament.

Media work

Robertson was a guest commentator for the 2017 British & Irish Lions tour series.

External links

• Scott Robertson at AllBlacks.com