{"id":12503,"date":"2012-07-17T12:55:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-1-rugby-former-all-blacks-winger-kirwan-new-blues-coach\/"},"modified":"2012-07-17T12:55:08","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:55:08","slug":"update-1-rugby-former-all-blacks-winger-kirwan-new-blues-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-rugby-former-all-blacks-winger-kirwan-new-blues-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Rugby-Former All Blacks winger Kirwan new Blues coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Adds details, quotes)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Greg Stutchbury<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">WELLINGTON, July 17<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Former All Blacks winger<br \/>\nJohn Kirwan has been named as the new coach of the struggling<br \/>\nAuckland Blues Super Rugby franchise, the team said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 47-year-old Kirwan, who also coached the Italy and Japan<br \/>\nnational teams, replaces Pat Lam, who spent four years in charge<br \/>\nof the team in New Zealand&#8217;s largest city.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The New Zealand Rugby Union had opened the job up for<br \/>\napplications as the Blues lurched through a terrible Super Rugby<br \/>\nseason to miss the playoffs and finish 12th in the 15-team<br \/>\nsouthern hemisphere provincial competition.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an exciting time. I am honoured to be given the<br \/>\nopportunity to lead the Blues next season in what I hope will be<br \/>\na new era of success and innovation,&#8221; Kirwan said in a<br \/>\nstatement.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m also thrilled about coming back to New Zealand and home<br \/>\nto Auckland after several years overseas.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am a proud Blues man and I started my rugby career in the<br \/>\nregion so I am really excited about connecting with fans and<br \/>\nworking with the Blues community.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is certainly some hard work ahead and I am looking<br \/>\nforward to the challenge.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Adds details, quotes) By Greg Stutchbury WELLINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) &#8211; Former All Blacks winger John Kirwan has been named as the new coach of the struggling Auckland Blues Super Rugby franchise, the team said on Tuesday. The 47-year-old Kirwan, who also coached the Italy and Japan national teams, replaces Pat Lam, who spent four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}