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Speaker 1: Look, anyone who thinks that Mark Robinson resigning from New

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Speaker 1: Zealand Rugby today as a shock clearly doesn't follow Rugby's

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Speaker 1: dramas with their brain fully turned out turned on. This

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Speaker 1: was not a shock at all. Anyone could see this coming.

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Speaker 1: This was coming the minute that David Kirk took over

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Speaker 1: as the chair. Now, I don't want to be seen

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Speaker 1: to be saying that David Kirk forced him out. It

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Speaker 1: is in fact quite possible that Mark Robinson just read

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Speaker 1: the room and left of his owner called first. But

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Speaker 1: it was always going to happen, wasn't it, Because David

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Speaker 1: Kirk is the new broom, and the new broom generally

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Speaker 1: generally gets rid of things that aren't working, and unfortunately

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Speaker 1: for Mark Robinson, that wasn't working. Now, I got no

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Speaker 1: hard feelings towards the guy. He seemed like a really

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Speaker 1: easy bloke, but he has not had the most glorious

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Speaker 1: of ten years, has he. When he brought in the

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Speaker 1: Silver Lake deal, which has yet to bear any fruit

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Speaker 1: despite all of the drama it caused, and boy did

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Speaker 1: it cause drama. He totally stuffed up the Fozzy situation

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Speaker 1: when he tried to fire Fozzy and then didn't fire Fozzy,

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Speaker 1: and then eventually did manage to get rid of Fozzy,

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Speaker 1: but by then we all felt really bad for Fozzy,

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Speaker 1: and he persisted with a super rugby competition that isn't working,

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Speaker 1: and all he's really managed to do with it is

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Speaker 1: tinker and it still isn't really working. The finances are terrible,

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Speaker 1: the game has maybe managed to arrest the decline, but

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Speaker 1: nothing much else, and the rugby community is bruised after

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Speaker 1: that Silver Lake altercation. If there is a lesson here,

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Speaker 1: I reckon it may be that New Zealand Rugby might

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Speaker 1: want to replace Mark Robinson with someone who isn't a

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Speaker 1: rugby man or a rugby woman, whatever, someone who isn't

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Speaker 1: sentimental about the game, who can look at all of

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Speaker 1: this business with fresh eyes and say, why is that

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Speaker 1: happening that shouldn't necessarily necessarily be happening, have the courage

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Speaker 1: to change it because they don't actually care about rugby

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Speaker 1: that much. Someone who can drive the change at rugby

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Speaker 1: needs because if there's one thing we all agree on,

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Speaker 1: it's that rugby needs change. For more from Heather Duplessy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive Listen live to news talks, it'd be from

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Speaker 1: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio