Interim NZ Rugby chief executive Steve Lancaster on Super Rugby, All Blacks and the high-performance director role

Sunday, 26 April 2026

New Zealand Rugby interim chief executive Steve Lancaster

Interim chief executive Steve Lancaster has stepped into the hot seat at New Zealand Rugby at a crucial time for the sport.

He has overseen the hiring of new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie and is playing a major role in securing a new high-performance director: two huge appointments for an organisation that has seen a number of long-serving figures announce their departure.

As NZ Rugby looks ahead to a pivotal period that includes the All Blacks’ tour of South Africa and the Rugby World Cup next year, Lancaster tells the Sunday Star-Times where there are challenges and where the game is stronger than given credit for.

Star-Times: Crowd numbers still look like an issue for the New Zealand Super Rugby clubs. Is this what that they are telling NZ Rugby?

Lancaster: We certainly acknowledge that there's some challenges around maximizing engagement in the competition and then operating a professional rugby team. This is not unique to New Zealand and in fact it's not unique to rugby. If you look around the world at different sporting leagues and different competitions, it's actually very common that teams operate at or below a break-even position in some years. There are a range of factors that play into that. Professional sport in particular is a very hungry beast, so it costs a lot of money to operate one of these teams and everybody is investing in performance and investing for an advantage. So, it's not uncommon that expenditure can outstrip revenue, But look, the circumstances around each of our clubs is very different. And so I wouldn't want to generalise for any of them what their circumstances are.

Star-Times: Is New Zealand Rugby still happy enough that it’s seeing the intensity in Super Rugby to prepare athletes for test rugby?

The Chiefs-Hurricanes game last weekend was arguably the most intense of the Super Rugby Pacific season to date.

Lancaster: Yes, absolutely. There's really two drivers around Super Rugby. One of them is around the product that fans want to attend and watch and we're very clear that Super Rugby is about having the best players playing in the best competition, and we really do believe we have the best players playing. We think it's the most entertaining competition in the world….so all of the markers around this competition, both in terms of it being a competitive and entertaining competition, but also producing players that can compete at the next level and preparing players for test rugby, all of those markers are tracking positively for us. We're seeing less downtime in games. We're seeing a lot of tries scored. We're averaging over eight tries a game, with a reduction in TMO interventions and referee interventions. So, we feel the product is really good. We don't shy away from the fact that we need to keep working on improving engagement in the competition and support for the competition, but some of that's around the narrative around the competition as opposed to the facts around the competition. [But] the answer to your question is, put succinctly, is absolutely yes. I do believe that.

Star-Times: Does New Zealand Rugby miss the South African teams?

Lancaster: We've got a really strong competition at Super Rugby level. We believe that having a competition that works in our region and our time zone actually works really well for the players and for the teams. I'm not just talking about New Zealand and Australia here - the Drua are continuing to get better and better. And we still get to see plenty of the South Africans in the back half of the year, and more so this year than in recent years, so that's positive.

Steve Lancaster says All Blacks coach Dave Rennie is confident of the playing stocks at his disposal.

Star-Times: Is Dave Rennie happy with the quality of players he’ll be selecting from in Super Rugby?

Lancaster: We didn't talk about the competition per se and I can't speak to any detail around what was discussed in that [appointment] process, but I will say we we did talk a lot about the players and how the players are tracking, and Dave is very confident that he has the right playing group or the right playing group available to him to field a competitive and successful All Blacks team.

Star-Times: One of the bigger-picture parts of the puzzle will be the new high performance director. How is that search going and when do you think NZ Rugby might be in a position to announce something?

Lancaster: The process is going well. We're undertaking a targeted recruitment process so you won't see the job listed on any job vacancy websites. We announced that we were creating that role several weeks ago and since then we have been working through a range of targeted conversations with people that we think might be suitable for the role. It's a bit like the All Blacks head coach role. Once you announce a vacancy like that people that might be interested in the role, and should know about the role, do. And so those conversations do unfold pretty naturally from there, so we're under way with that process. I'm loath to put a timeline on anything like…but we're very happy with how it's progressing and we shouldn't be too far away from making some announcement.

Star-Times: When that role was first discussed publicly there was a strong focus on making sure that the All Blacks and the Black Ferns were back on top of the world. But how narrow, or how broad, is that role? For example, if a high performance director comes in and a Super Rugby club is looking for a head coach, does he or she get involved in that process?

Lancaster: Yes - it’s the broader remit. They absolutely will have oversight across key appointments, including our involvement in Super Rugby coaching appointments. We've been very clear that we need a really singular focus on supporting the All Blacks and Black Ferns to win and we've been very deliberate in calling that out. But we also recognise that it's a system that enables that. So, we're not creating a role here that looks like the director of rugby roles that you see in the northern hemisphere, where they're essentially a manager of the senior team. This [NZ Rugby] role will have a lens right through the system, in terms of how things all fit together to ultimately support the All Blacks and Black Ferns to be successful on the world stage.