The Captain's Run: What it Takes to Lead the All Blacks

Description

How the captains of the last 50 years have gone about leading the world's most successful rugby team. The job of All Blacks captain comes with a scrutiny that puts it alongside the prime minister in terms of profile and public expectation. It takes a strong, confident and assured personality to captain a team where failure is never tolerated. The Captain's Run is a behind the scenes journey into the world of All Blacks captaincy. It reveals how the great captains dealt with the pressure of the toughest job in world rugby, how they coped with failure, and what they would have done differently, if given their time again.

Gregor Paul is The New Zealand Herald's most respected rugby columnist and is a regular contributor to publications around the world. He has won multiple journalism awards for news, features and opinion writing, and is a sought after guest on radio and TV. Gregor has been reporting on Steve Hansen's career since the rugby great was unexpectedly thrust into his Wales coaching role in 2002. He has interviewed Steve on more than a hundred occasions over 16 seasons, including specifically for the purposes of this book. Gregor's journey to cover the All Blacks has taken him all over the world - he reported live from every Bledisloe Cup test during Steve's head coaching tenure, as well as from Samoa, Japan, USA, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, France and Italy. Gregor was born and raised in Scotland, and has lived in Auckland with his wife and three children since 2003.