Hansen predicts ‘big careers’
Write it down in your notebooks, says Steve Hansen. Pens hover poised. This will be a year, declares the Gaffer, that advances the cause of All Blacks rugby.
He doesn’t come out and add that it has been the sort of season that wins you World Cups, but the intent is clear and obvious. Two years out from Japan 2019, the back-to-back champions have achieved some significant gain to go with just a little bit of shortterm pain in a challenging but ultimately rewarding year.
After churning through 55 players to cover 14 tests and two non-cap internationals (44 making some sort of contribution on the northern tour) in 2017, Hansen makes it clear that there is a good deal of satisfaction about the position he occupies heading into summer. No rocks under his towel.
Yes, it could have been better, he says as he dissects the season with the small corps of Kiwi media who have covered the last month in November. The Lions series (a win, defeat and draw) will rankle for years to come, and the Brisbane slipup was annoying more than anything more sinister, but this group has charged through both the Rugby Championship and end-of-year tour with a perfect record against opposition that have asked some pretty serious questions.
They also finished the 2017 campaign at Cardiff’s splendid Principality Stadium in rather satisfying fashion. A young group shorn its skipper, alongside 10 other frontliners, faced some adversity and had to figure a way out of a tight spot. They did so with a degree of style as they signed off 2017 with a flourish. That a 20-yearold playing his first full season of test footy was the star of their show was symbolic of the sort of year it’s been.
‘‘It’s been a very satisfying year because it’s been a year with a bit of adversity with injuries and personal things affecting availability,’’ says Hansen as he reflects big picture. ‘‘We worked out the other day in the group that played the last test, we’ve got two guys left from the [2015] World Cup starters, and another four off the bench. Yeah, we’ve been up and down a wee bit, but we’ve managed to win most
‘‘It hasn’t been too bad a year. I’m really proud of the guys the way they finished, with lots of energy [against Wales], they
played with some skill, scored some lovely tries and showed a lot of commitment on defence.
‘‘This will be a year you can put down in your notebook that will advance All Black rugby in the future. There’s a lot of players that will come out of this year, maybe not in the immediate future, but certainly in the long term, that will have big careers.’’
Hansen had to dig very deep through this season as so many big names dropped by the wayside. The by-product of that is he is building an incredible depth of test contenders. Throw Joe Moody and Owen Franks back into the prop mix, and Ben Smith, Israel Dagg and Nehe Milner-skudder into the back-three contingent, and there are some tough choices to make. He now has three very good No 6s, some options at lock and everywhere bar halfback he could realistically get by with an injury, or even two.
‘‘That experience is stuff you can’t buy,’’ adds Hansen. ‘‘You can’t just give it to somebody; they’ve got to earn that. At times you’ll see inconsistency, which we have this year, but as the time goes on they get better at understanding what you need to do at this level, and become more professional as athletes and better at preparing themselves.
‘‘Competition is massive. The more competition you’ve got, the harder everyone has to work. That’s why I say mark down this year. There has been adversity ... we’ve had to work hard, and we hear that we’re not playing well, and not doing this right. Whilst we tried re-establish in 2016, in ‘17 we’ve had to rebuild when we weren’t planning on it.
‘‘It’s made it difficult at times, but it’s also given us a big advantage going forward.’’
Hansen happily identified 20-year-old wing sensation Rieko Ioane as his standout player of the year -- ‘‘We knew there was a bit of talent there but he’s been phenomenal’’ -- but also namechecked Nathan Harris, Codie Taylor and Sam Cane among a raft of personnel who had furthered their causes in the national squad.
He’s equally sure progress has been made in areas such as game management and negotiating the tough times that are part of bigtime test rugby.
‘‘You look at the second test in Wellington [against the Lions] and we were 18-9 up and should have probably won that game, even with Sonny off. But we didn’t manage it that well. Then [against Wales] we managed it very well.’’
Asked what the core group who missed the back part of the season would make of the progress made in their absence, Hansen let just the hint of a smile of contentment appear.
‘‘The injuries or mishaps they’ve had will make them hungry anyway. Hopefully they’re missing the environment, and the fact that someone else has stepped up and played well will also make them hungry to want to get back.
‘‘Usually when players leave, they’re really hungry to get back in and not so apt to take it for granted. There are some pluses in that department too.’’
But the planning never stops either. Especially not with the eternal quest to manage the players through the 10-month season, which next year will include a fortnight in Japan ahead of massive back-to-back tests against England Ireland in November.
‘‘We’ve done a lot of work on that already, and have good plans for both the Super franchises and ourselves to make the players able to perform for them and us. [NZ Rugby] have been very supportive of some ideas we’ve got for the endof-year tour. We are well planned.’’
He will need to be. There are a lot of names on that depth chart now. Some big calls to make