Danny Hay – Power over performance

By Andrew McGoff

Plenty has been written about Danny Hay since Don McKinnon’s review into the All Whites failed World Cup qualifying campaign. Depending on which side of the Bombay Hills you are situated tends to influence your stance on how Hay was treated by New Zealand Football in the All White Head Coach recent review process.

Those situated to the North have come across as Hay apologists who assert Hay should have been re-appointed as All Whites Head Coach. Hay has been lauded as a coach that has made significant strides in improving the cultural awareness in the All Whites environment, has a clear vision and philosophy for how the team should play. Former players and journalists alike have laid blame squarely at the feet of New Zealand Football for supposedly mistreating Hay and making ‘a terrible mistake’ by letting him go.

Those situated to the South were quick to call for Des Buckingham to be appointed into the Head Coach role. Buckingham is a coach well known to those who follow the Wellington Phoenix. He has earned a reputation as a highly qualified, promising young coach and has had through his success coaching NZ age group footballers many of who are now in the All Whites squad.

What is glaringly obvious is that for all that talk about how good this group of All Whites players are and what a good style of football the team play, ultimately the All Whites failed to qualify for the World Cup and have found goal scoring very hard to come by. If World Cup qualification was Hay’s number one KPI, then he failed to meet it.

If Hay was as good as his apologists think he is, why didn’t Danny Hay re-apply for the role? In short, it appears his thirst for power in the All Whites environment ruined any chances of re-appointment and Hay knew it.

Hay’s first power play when first appointed as the All Whites Head Coach was to insist the Olympic team (under 23’s) lead by Buckingham, fall under his rule. A large group of the Olympic team players wrote to New Zealand Football pleading for Buckingham to be retained as coach, but the sales job Hay did meant the pleas fell on deaf ears.

In MacKinnon’s review Hay is referred to as an ‘autocratic coach’ with players describing him as ‘demanding and intense’. Autocratic style coaches, who rant and rave and scream and shout, are unfortunately all too common in club football around the world. You see them down at the park on a Saturday morning, micromanaging their young charges through games, criticising their mistakes and managing player game time to prioritise winning.

MacKinnon’s review expressed that whilst Hay gave the impression he wanted and in fact welcomed input from coaches, Hay ‘set the tone and was unquestionably ‘in charge’. According to Andrew Dewhurst and Harry Ngata, caught chatting pre-game in the Birkenhead v Auckland City National League game, “we all know what Danny is like” it’s his way or the highway. That these young players, who don’t enjoy this style need to “grow a couple” and “just harden up”.

Aspiring All White players may not have a choice but to accept an autocratic coaching style when they play for their club sides; they want first team opportunities, they want to see their dream of being transferred to a major club, the club pays their wages. But players should not have to accept this style of coaching in the national team. With short training camps and intense match days a more considered ‘man manager’ is needed more than ever. Instead, it appears players were faced with a coach that built an environment that, according to MacKinnon’s review ‘became too negative and too intense’. For these young players, they were left with no choice but to put up with it, so as not to risk being left out of the squad for the World Cup Qualifiers.

For a Head Coach that used the word ‘mana’ frequently in his interviews, he appeared to enjoy stripping the players of theirs when in camp.

It has been alleged that prior to the World Cup play-off match in Doha that Hay contracted covid and chose to leave isolation early. It would appear that Hay’s need to be in control of team trainings and team meetings usurped the requirement to abide by New Zealand Football covid rules. Rumours are that subsequently a couple of players then contracted covid and were unavailable for the All Whites biggest game in four years.

There was a time when it used to be that the Head Coach was the supreme leader of a football club. They would be directly involved in almost every aspect of the club, be it training sessions, working on transfers and contracts or laying foundations for the future. The buck stopped with them. Then the Director of Football role came along and we heard some Head Coaches were unhappy that they would have to relinquish power and let key player decisions be made by someone else. Added to the loss of power the Head Coaches also report into this new role and work closely with them.

This brings us to another of Hay’s power play. In the New Zealand Football sense, the Director of Football was Gareth Jennings, their General Manager of High Performance. A highly qualified coach, holding higher qualifications that Hay, who was previously the Head of Technical Leadership for FIFA responsible for the development of all Technical Directors, High Performance Directors and Coach Education Managers globally. Hay was too power hungry to work with Jennings, and word on the street is that this lead to Jennings resignation after nine months in the role.

This quote from NZF CEO, Andrew Pragnell, is telling “after discussions with the high performance and player welfare committee, we decided we would go to market”. NZ Football knew there was no way they could continue with Hay at the helm as his style of coaching put power ahead of player performance and welfare. An announcement from New Zealand Football on who will be the next Head Coach is eagerly awaited. The All Whites are not likely to miss much about Hay’s coaching style when the group come together in the March International window.

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