MIND GAMES Owen Slot
On the day the British and Irish Lions arrive in New Zealand, Steve Hansen believes he can see Warren Gatland’s game plan a mile off. reports.
As the Lions wing their way to Auckland, the All Blacks coach is sitting in New Zealand and confidently awaiting his guests’ arrival.
Steve Hansen is idiosyncratically calm, he has key players injured but he will not betray the slightest flicker of concern. Yet he is abrasive too. He says that he believes he can see Warren Gatland’s game plan from a mile off and, as for his own team, he says that you may have been impressed by them last year but there is more to come.
Some of this is pre-tour sparring but, then again, Hansen is delighted to engage whenever he feels that defence or attack is required. For instance, the British and Irish Lions have trumpeted that they are bringing to the contest the best team of goalkickers. Big deal, responds Hansen: ‘‘There’s no doubt they have got great goalkickers, but on the park, only one of them can kick.’’
Even though his All Blacks are strong favourites for the test series, he is keen to crank up some pressure on the Lions too.
‘‘There is a massive amount of excitement with our fans,’’ he says. ‘‘Our fans are pretty well educated and even though Gats has called them arrogant, I don’t think they are – they are well informed and have high expectations of us. And they know this Lions squad is one of the best to have been picked for a long, long time.’’
Lions supporters are coming in hope rather than expectation. Yet where Hansen is most interesting is not when he is trying to engage the enemy, but when he is talking about team building. It is in the sustaining of success for these All Blacks that he has been outstanding.
Let us allow him to deliver a few messages first, though. He believes that the series will be tighter than the 3-0 defeat in 2005 – well, praise the Lord! – but he also believes that the Lions played their hand so badly over the Brian O’Driscoll injury in 2005 that they actually assisted the All Blacks.
‘‘The one thing that helped us was everyone attacking Tana Umaga over what happened with Brian,’’ says Hansen over the tackle by Umaga and Keven Mealamu in the opening minutes of the first test in Christchurch that left the Lions captain with a dislocated shoulder. ‘‘I don’t think there was any intent and, yes, in today’s game, I think both of them would have got cited,’’ he says. ‘‘But it’s not their fault that they didn’t and there certainly wasn’t any intent to hurt Brian. How Tana was taken to really ignited our team to get stronger and support him and that helped us win the series.’’
In other words, when in New Zealand, be careful who you criticise. This is Hansen on the issues his own team face. He has suffered injuries to key players such as Kieran Read, Jerome Kaino and Dane Coles. ‘‘Most of them will be back at some stage,’’ he says.
Beauden Barrett is New Zealand’s star No 10 whose one flaw is from the kicking tee, so much so that he is not the automatic first-choice kicker for the Hurricanes. ‘‘I don’t think we’ve lost a test match through his goalkicking,’’ Hansen says.
‘‘People are panicking because he’s not goalkicking for the Hurricanes. That was initially because he had a side strain and it was hurting when he was goalkicking. He stopped and his brother [Jordie] took over.
‘‘I don’t care [that he isn’t the Hurricanes’ first-choice kicker]. I know he can mentally cope with the task of goalkicking in the arena.
This is Hansen on the style of rugby he expects the Lions to play: ‘‘We’ve got a thing we call ABCs of rugby – Assume some things, Believe nothing until we Confirm them. We assume Warren’s not going to have an epiphany and change the way he plays but we’re only assuming that. We’re not believing it until we see them play and, with a tour, you do get to see the opposition play a bit, so we’ll be able to confirm one or two things prior to that first test.’’
What is crucial to the series is as much what the Lions bring as how far advanced the All Blacks will be.
This team, Hansen says, ‘‘is at the beginning’’. ‘‘I am very happy with where we got to at the end of 2016. Has it reached its potential? I don’t think so. I still think there is plenty of room for us to improve.
‘‘Clearly we lost a lot of experience and leadership after the World Cup in 2015 so last year was about re-establishing ourselves and putting a marker back in the ground about how we want to be and I see this year as a continuation of that. We’ve moved on successfully from a playing point of view, but there’s always stuff you can do better.’’