Hansen brushes off comparisons

It’s been a funny old week for the All Blacks.

They come all this way north, only to end up playing a bunch of Kiwis first up, and then all anyone wants to know about is a team they don’t meet for another year, and have beaten 14 of the last 15 times they’ve faced them.

All week here in London, part one of the annual November jaunt north, Steve Hansen and his All Blacks have been asked about the England team widely considered to be the greatest threat between them and a third straight Rugby World Cup crown in 2019 in Japan.

But here’s the thing: the All Blacks haven’t played England since 2014 when they ticked off the last of five straight victories against them. And they don’t meet them again until November next year.

So the New Zealanders have done their best to bat away the questions on England, pointing out that they are more or less irrelevant for the above mentioned reasons. But still they’ve kept coming.

Part of it is that the All Blacks’ firstup opponents are a Barbarians side that haven’t quite captured the imagination of the British public, with only one northern hemisphere player in their ranks.

Also, the Eddie Jones-coached England rugby team are quite a big deal in these parts, and considered a decent chance to roll the All Blacks ahead of and during the next global gathering.

So when Hansen fronted for the final time in the leadup to his team’s opening match against the Barbarians at Twickenham on Saturday (early Sunday NZT), naturally the England rugby team was mentioned.

All week the All Blacks have heard how Jones has compiled a dossier on the world champions via information gleaned from his English players on the British and Irish Lions.

And they’ve been asked, over and over, whether they’re disappointed they are not facing England on this tour.

‘‘Good on him’, and ‘no’ have been the gist of their responses.

But Hansen, of course, could not resist a reply. So when informed that Jones had mentioned that the All Blacks were slowing the game down while everyone else was speeding it up, and in fact that had been a compliment, the All Blacks coach smiled wryly.

‘‘I can’t say too much ... but Eddie is on the ball though,’’ said Hansen. ‘‘He’s got a dossier on everything we’re doing, so it’ll be true.

‘‘Everyone has got dossiers, it just depends what label you put on them. We’re trying to do things subtly different so we’ve got a more complete game. It’s nice to get a compliment from Eddie who’s doing a good job with England.

‘‘It’s wonderful for rugby, and I know everyone is excited about playing them next year, as they are us. But we’ll worry about that when the time comes.’’

Hansen was asked by a British reporter if his team might be looking to make a statement to England rugby this weekend in their own backyard?

‘‘You guys love that,’’ he chuckled. ‘‘You love saying ‘you’re going to make a statement’. I remember when we lost in 2012 to England, and it was ‘oh this is going to ruin your World Cup’. So much water will go under the bridge that things like that aren’t even on our minds.

‘‘It’s the opportunity for 23 blokes to go out and represent their country and take some learnings.

‘‘We’re striving to get better every day, and this is an opportunity to see how we’ve prepared this week to do that. I don’t think it’s about making statements.’’