The All Blacks’ Secret Weapon: Gilbert Enoka on Mental Skills, Pressure & Winning Culture

Gilbert Enoka - the All Blacks’ long-time mental skills coach - shares the untold stories behind New Zealand rugby’s culture, resilience, and leadership.

Across 23 years and 304 tests and 2 World Cup victories, Gilbert worked with coaches and players like Sir Graham Henry, Sir Steve Hansen, Ian Foster, and legends including Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, and Tana Umaga.

In this episode, he opens up about:

Building the All Blacks’ culture of standardsThe crisis of identity that nearly killed the hakaLessons from failure at the 2007 Rugby World CupWhy pressure is not the enemy, but a lifestyle“Gilbertisms” like Take the Sausage, Wishbone–Backbone–Funnybone, and Winge up, not downWorking with Chelsea FC, England Cricket, and The NSW Blues

Whether you’re a rugby fan, coach, or leader, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom.

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Good questions. Great guests. Few beers... Steve and Seamus like asking good questions. And they love good answers. After over 20 years of friendship, they bought a microphone and started a podcast, allowing them to sit with, and learn from, the most interesting people they can access.

From Kiwi legend Marc Ellis, to media personalities Jeremy Wells and Paddy Gower, Rugby coach extraordinaire Wayne Smith, sexologist Morgan Penn, and Olympian Dame Lisa Carrington... Between Two Beers has produced countless hours of incredible stories, career highs, lows and moments of raw vulnerability. All from the One NZ Studio.

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• No. of episodes: 399
• Latest episode: 2026-05-24
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