Why waiting could take the wind out of Team NZ's sails

by Peter Lester on 6 Apr 2003 Team New Zealand needs leadership now because there's a whole bunch of people out there waiting for something to happen.

The feedback I'm getting, even internally from Team New Zealand, is that people are looking for something to cling on to.

Not necessarily a contract or money. It's the thought that 'hey, this is going to be worthwhile being a part of when it gets going.'

That's not going to last for six months.

Team New Zealand's trustees have started a feasibility study for a 2007 challenge and will decide by October whether to go ahead. But there seems to be too much that New Zealand can't control.

We don't know what Alinghi is going to do with the cup, where it will be and when we will know.

How can you do a feasibility study when there's all these unknowns hanging around? You might as well just get on with the job. Start what needs to be done to put together a challenge capable of winning the cup, and then manage the conditions set down by Alinghi.

And for that you need a leader. Does it need someone new? Yes, I think it does.

My understanding is Grant Dalton would be prepared to give it a whack, but there still seems to be some resistance.

A decision favouring Dalton, even as an interim leader, is better than no decision.

A leader will put a team around him he knows can do the job. I'd really hate us to miss this opportunity.

I don't want to say too much about the internal review, but it is disappointing there hasn't been an element of an external review.

It is very hard to review yourself and be tough. It shouldn't be a witch-hunt, but it should be a process to move the team on.

You have to take the emotion and vested interests out of it, and work out the areas you need to change.

There's no way there can just be a rollover. The team lost. There has to be a good look at why. It's not the same as 2000; they got beaten 5-0.

It is being promoted that the main players from this campaign have a similar value to the likes of Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth three years ago.

But the value of the entire team in terms of being poached is not the same. If you're a winner you have a market value. If you lose, that market value is less.

So that, too, is why we need to make decisions now.

For Team New Zealand, there are probably some areas they are going to have to fill from the international marketplace. We're not as strong in the back of the bus, the afterguard, as we were in the past.

So you need to work that out now, and go out and start talking to the people you want. In six months they might not be there.

There are a lot of similarities between New Zealand's team in 1992, who lost in the challenger finals, and Team New Zealand this time. Both appear to have been designer-driven. One of the key things that came out of the 1992 review was that a big component of the philosophy behind the boat had to be sailor-driven.

Then there was a radical boat in both campaigns. In 1992 there were a lot of people in awe of the bowsprit boat, but in the end it didn't get the job done.

In 1992 and 2003, the afterguards didn't work. And leadership was a key. In 1992 there was a flat management structure, the same as in 2003. It was very much management by consensus.

That was definitely not the case in 1995 with Sir Peter Blake, and 2000 with Blake and Coutts. Leadership is what it's all about. Sir Michael Fay couldn't lead the team like Sir Peter could.

It's about a focal point that people can relate to, communicate with, get behind, and move the thing on. That is what we have to think about now.

But we need to make a quick decision because if you leave it too long, you lose the enthusiasm for the event.

You lose the feeling of the sailors and the sporting public that a challenge is a good idea.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup