‘Shy’ Hansen won’t miss fishbowl life
Steve Hansen is very much looking forward to getting his life back after a long stint guiding the fortunes of the All Blacks, writes Richard Knowler.
Steve Hansen began winding down his All Blacks career by completing one of the jobs he disliked most.
Yesterday, the All Blacks coach held his final press conference at the World Cup tournament in Japan, holding court in front of a small number of journalists in central Tokyo.
Had everything gone to plan for Hansen he would have been nervously counting down the hours until the final in Yokohama last night, and later held court in front of around 150 media representatives from around the world.
Instead he sat down in front of a smattering of journalists to reflect on the previous evening’s 40-17 win over Wales in the bronze final at Tokyo Stadium, chatting for about 25 minutes as he prepares for life outside of international rugby after being involved with the New Zealand and Welsh national teams for the last 19 years.
There is plenty Hansen will miss about one of the most highprofile jobs in New Zealand; coaching talented athletes, working alongside coaches he holds in high regard and the buzz of match-day are just the start.
Then there is the other side of it. Having to be quizzed by reporters and talk into microphones, and look at rows of TV cameras is something he will be happy to avoid.
‘‘I won’t miss coming to media conferences and I don’t mean that disrespectfully,’’ Hansen said.
‘‘Because what media conferences do is put you front and centre all the time, and that’s not really who I am. I am quite a shy person, not many think that but I am.’’
There is a twist to this. Because Hansen, along with England coach Eddie Jones, has undoubtedly been one of the most entertaining and forthright men throughout this tournament.
While some coaches elect to give away as little as possible Hansen has often given honest answers, offered information unprompted and entertained with jokes and one-liners.
Yet the 60-year-old, who will finish up with NZ Rugby early next year and says he doesn’t expect its top brass to seek his ideas on who should replace him, said he didn’t like having to sit and field questions in public.
‘‘I like to keep my life to myself but not having to share my whole life with the rest of the world will be great. I won’t miss that.
‘‘I especially won’t miss not having to put my family through that.’’
Now Hansen will exit NZ Rugby to work at the Toyota club in Japan, although he said he was still not at liberty to reveal exactly what his role will entail.
Toyota has also contracted departing All Blacks captain Kieran Read, 34, who has signed a one-year deal. Hansen is expected to work as a coaching director.
Hansen cut an emotional figure when he did a TV interview on the field at Tokyo Stadium after the win over Wales, and had to take a moment to compose himself when the crowd applauded and cheered him.
‘‘It’s humbling and embarrassing and gets you emotional like I couldn’t speak, so I looked like a bloody zombie,’’ he said.
‘‘Even talking about it now makes me feel a bit emotional. Again, you don’t do it for that. It is an added bonus, I suppose, that people think you have done a good job.’’
There has been no shortage of highlights. Hansen will be remembered as one of New Zealand’s greatest coaches, despite failing to claim the title threepeat.
Rather than single out an event – and surely retaining the Webb Ellis Cup in Britain in 2015 as head coach is right up there – he said he enjoyed having the chance to help rugby players improve.
If asked to mentor coaches in New Zealand, he is happy to assist.
‘‘I love the game, so somewhere along the line if someone wants me to help them, I will help them,’’ Hansen said.
‘‘I don’t necessarily need to have a job to do that. We will see what falls out of the sky.’’
Team New Zealand are making rapids gains on their biggest enemy as the defence of the America’s Cup looms on their horizon.
Forget the other heavily funded syndicates vying for the Auld Mug, time is a commodity no team can buy but the Kiwis are making huge savings in a compressed testing period because of state of the art technology.
Emirates Team New Zealand now have live data off the 75-foot foiling monohull coming directly to their base with Spark New Zealand successfully trialling a 5G service specifically set up for the cup defenders.
The 5G service covers parts of the Waitemata¯ Harbour, off Milford and Takapuna, where Team New Zealand are doing some of their test sailing on the waters where official races will be held in early 2021.
It’s hard to quantify but Team New Zealand design boss Dan Bernasconi described it as ‘‘massive’’ – precious hours are being saved each day the boat, named Te Aihe, is on the water.
They already have 5G at their base along with 5G handsets, but the latest development could be a game-changer, offering an advantage their opponents from Great Britain, Italy and the United States don’t have.
It comes at a crucial stage. Te Aihe was launched only in early September and unruly spring weather has already affected the number of sailing days. Every minute is vital – information off this first generation of boats is crucial to the design and build of the second boat that will be used in Auckland next year. The start of that year-long build process is imminent.
‘‘The days we are getting right now could be where the America’s Cup is won or lost. Decisions you are making now you can’t unmake later on,’’ Bernasconi told the Sunday StarTimes.
‘‘The time before launching the first boat and committing to the next boat, particularly the hull shape, has almost vanished.
‘‘Originally teams would have expected to have a few months sailing under their belts, now you are having to learn all those lessons really, really quickly.’’
Designers are literally tweaking components back at their computers at HQ based on information coming off the boat while the boat foils across the Waitemata¯ Harbour.
‘‘Before the team had access to 5G they had to get a hard disk with all the data off the sailing boat, then the chase boat took it back to the base, and a team member would run the hard disk up to the data server at the base. Design work using the data couldn’t happen until well after the boat had docked. You could almost lose a day,’’ Bernasconi explained.
‘‘Now we have 5G on the water, there are hundreds of realtime data streams such as boat speed, ride height, and hydraulic pressure coming off the water and back to our design team at the base.
‘‘By the time the boat docks at the end of the day, they have already made a lot of analysis and that may feed directly into any changes we are doing on the boat that night. We can go out and test that straight away the next day.
‘‘It’s actually a very long day on the water with a lot of stopstarts. If you are a foil designer you might be interested in only 20 minutes, so for those guys to be able to stay onshore, design the next generation of foils while at the same time having a screen showing them what is going on and tuning in when something interesting is happening makes a massive difference in efficiency.
‘‘We don’t have that many days until we move off this boat and on to our race boat.
‘‘We will be committing to the second shape soon. We will be making decisions on foils and mast systems well before that first boat leaves on the container ship [in February for the opening World Series regatta to be sailed in Italy in April].’’
Jolie Hodson, CEO of Spark, is delighted to see the immediate impact of 5G live on the water for Emirates Team New Zealand.
‘‘It’s delivering what we said we’d do when we opened the Spark 5G lab last year – helping to make their boat go faster,’’ Hodson said.
TEAM NEW ZEALAND DESIGN BOSS DAN BERNASCONI