Hansen’s last t
All Blacks coach makes mess of Super Rugby relationships and must stan
There is a crack in the shiny black hull of the All Blacks. Coaches and players are falling overboard. There is mutiny below decks. And helmsman Hansen sails regally on, calling for calm and unity, as the fibreglass splinters about his feet.
Unless New Zealand Rugby is also suffering from the isolating madness of black fever, it will have a word in Steve Hansen’s ear. It will tell the coach he has to announce that he will be retiring after the 2019 World Cup.
‘‘Shag, me old mate,’’ they will say, ‘‘for the sake of the game in this country, you have to go.’’
Here is why. When Hansen called for unity after absurdly receiving the Halberg leadership award (well, that’s Sport New Zealand for you, a bunch of kooks), several coaches will have fallen off their chairs. It was a bit like Robespierre asking the French intellectuals to drink the milk of human kindness after his reign of terror.
Hansen said: ‘‘I don’t want to be plucking players out of Super Rugby. Unfortunately with the way the season is structured you’ve got to have some preparation to play an international team of the standard of France. We went through a process where a lot of people were spoken to . . . let’s just get on with it and work together and do the right thing by our players.’’
This is absurd on so many levels. First, has ‘France’ become lost in translation. Not only are France not very good, but their players will be knackered and jetlagged when they get here. If Hansen is worth all of his coach of the year awards, he should be able to have a captain’s run on the beach the day before and still put 30 points on Les Bleus.
France are in the early stages of a Six Nations that will take casualties. It already has. La Rochelle, Clermont, Racing and RC Toulon will then all compete in the knockout stages of the European Champions Cup. About 20 of the current French squad come from those clubs.
The leading French teams will follow that by playing out the final stages of the Top 14, culminating in the final in Paris on June 2. France will then play a test match against the All Blacks at Eden Park on June 9. It is insane. Their team will be in bits.
So let’s not pretend, as Hansen is doing, that these training camps have anything to do with beating France. The mangy cockerel will be half-dead when it flutters down on these shores. Coach Jacques Brunel is on a suicide mission.
The best guess is that these camps speak of Hansen’s growing insecurity. The All Blacks failed to win against the Lions last year. They also lost to Australia, a country against whom New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams had won all 22 matches. And Hansen is worried by the departure of Wayne Smith.
Hansen is secretly blaming the Lions’ series performances, when the All Blacks often looked a good deal less inventive than the visitors, on a lack of preparation. He is also worried about England in November and the World Cup next year. Fair enough, but put it out in the open.
The lack of transparency is one of the things that is seriously undermining this All Blacks leadership. When Hansen talks about a process where a lot of people were spoken to, who were these people? They certainly don’t seem to have included Chris Boyd, the Hurricanes head coach.
Boyd said that Hansen had not spoken to him for three years. What? It seems quite incredible to me that the All Blacks had issues with wing Julian Savea’s state of mind and state of body, and that Hansen did not have a conversation with the Hurricanes head coach. Was Hansen off at the races? Or has Hansen spoken to Boyd once in a while over the previous three years, but just not as much as the Canes coach thinks appropriate?
Boyd also said: ‘‘Generally those guys that go to the All Blacks are the guys that are key to your environment. So not to have them at the start of the week and then play a game two days later, is really short of high performance in my mind. I think the bit that I was disappointed about – I amnot sure that all relevant parties to that decision ever got in a room and chewed it over.’’
So who were all the people Hansen said he was talking to. Himself? He presumably talked to the other All Blacks’ coaches and NZR, but at times that is also like talking to himself.
When Boyd says that the Super clubs are the lifeblood of the All Blacks, he is right. They are the lifeblood pumped full of oxygen operating at a capacity beyond the rest of the world. Hansen’s record last year was very poor in terms of the players he was getting from Super Rugby.
And now Hansen wants to disrupt a competition that already has financial issues by putting the top players into AB camps. With New Zealand derbies dominating before the test against France, only April 21-23 looks like an appropriate window for a camp. But none of these camps are necessary to beat France. This is a power play.
For the first time since the 2011 World Cup, New Zealand Rugby is losing its grip. It is so worried about all its top coaches going overseas that it is no longer barring them from eligibility for the top job. Furthermore, NZR is talking of building relationships with ‘‘chosen’’ European and Japanese clubs, so that it can pretend that some of the top players going overseas are on sabbatical.
But if Hansen is such a quality leader how come so many of New Zealand’s top players (Aaron