How Wayne Smith Built the All Blacks, Crusaders & Black Ferns Into Winning Cultures

Sir Wayne Smith — aka “The Professor” — is one of the most decorated coaches in New Zealand rugby history. In this conversation he opens up the systems behind decades of winning.

The season the All Blacks spat into vials so a scientist could map their hormones — and why every fix was cultural, not chemical. The Henry V video that rebuilt a last-placed Crusaders side. The honesty card players handed back when a teammate broke the standards — and the cards Smith found pushed under his hotel door on tour. Why he doesn't believe in team talks. Why he wore sunglasses to speak to one All Black before games. What the self-coached 1924 Invincibles still teach anyone leading a team a century later.

And then there's the Black Ferns: the party bus that traumatised him until Kendra Cocksedge told him to stop asking about the music, the coin toss where his captain overruled him, and what coaching the women's game taught him about how different teams find their best.

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