Poll: Most Support Henry’s Re-Appointment

11 December 2007
For immediate release

Most Support Henry’s Re-Appointment

See also full research report in PDF format…
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0712/HenryAllBlackCoach.pdf

Most people (61%) support Graham Henry’s re-appointment as the All Blacks coach, a nationwide poll conducted by UMR has found*.

Support for his reappointment tended to decline with age. Only 51% of those over 60 years of age supported his re-appointment compared with 74% of those under 30 years.

Although support for his reappointment was slightly lower in Christchurch, the home of his main rival for the position, Robbie Deans, 57% in Christchurch supported his reappointment compared to 63% in Auckland. Christchurch recorded the highest level of opposition to Henry’s reappointment with 29% opposed. Care needs to be taken interpreting the Christchurch results due to the relatively lower number of respondents (n=78).

These results are consistent with a survey UMR conducted in October soon after the All Blacks’ defeat to France, when most rugby enthusiasts thought Henry had done enough to be re-appointed the All Blacks coach.

The top rated reasons for the defeat to the French were the French defence, the referee, the All Blacks’ lack of composure in the last 10 minutes of the game and the lack of any serious competition in the poll play.

Tables and more detailed analysis are provided in the attached report.

*Results in this report are based upon questions asked in the UMR Research nation-wide omnibus survey. This is a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 750 New Zealanders 18 years of age and over.

Fieldwork was conducted from the 6th to 10th December 2007 at UMR Research’s national interview facility in Auckland.

The questions presented in this report were added into the survey on the 7th December 2007. The sample size is n=606. The margin of error for sample size of 606 for a 50% figure at the ‘95% confidence level’ is ± 4.0%.

Support for Henry

A clear majority (61%) support the reappointment of Graham Henry as All Blacks coach with 21% opposing it.
SUPPORT FOR HENRY’S REAPPOINTMENT

As you may be aware, the New Zealand Rugby Union recently reappointed Graham Henry as the All Black coach, despite the poor performance at the Rugby World Cup earlier this year. Do you support or oppose this decision by the rugby union?
DEC-07

%
Support 61
Oppose 21
Depends -
Unsure 18
TOTAL 100
Base: All, n=606

ENDS

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