The All Blacks were an amateur team in ethos when Hansen first came on board and the transition to being genuinely professional is his greatest achievement.
AFTER EIGHT YEARS AS HEAD COACH STEVE HANSEN LEFT THE JOB IN EARLY NOVEMBER WHEN THE ALL BLACKS DEFEATED WALES IN THE BRONZ E MEDAL MATCH OF THE WORLD CUP. HE SPOKE TO GREGOR PAUL ABOUT HIS TIME IN THE ROLE.
Everyone who has ever coached an international team presumably has a vision that they will ride off into the sunset with the World Cup clutched under their arm and the masses waving them a heroic goodbye.
It's the perfect way to end an international coaching tenure.
A World Cup victory leaves a sense of everything being right.
A World Cup title can add an incredible glow to any coaching reign no matter what happened in the preceding years.
Not that Graham Henry needed a fairytale ending as such but when he got his in 2011, the final act of an eight-year stint that was mostly good but with one memorably bad period, he was offered a knighthood and a place in the national psyche as a favourite old uncle.
Steve Hansen wanted the same ending to his eight-years in charge of the All Blacks. He didn't need it to preserve a treasured place in history. He already had that locked down.
He took over as head coach of the All Blacks in 2012 after eight years as an assistant and with everyone predicting it would all end horribly for him, he took the team to greater heights.
In his first year, they only lost one test – and that was at the end of a long, long season. In 2013 they didn't lose a single game and then he coached the All Blacks to a World Cup victory in 2015, before they set a record of 18 consecutive victories in 2016.
His win record was incredible. The All Blacks won 89 per cent of their tests with Hansen as coach so coming into the 2019 World Cup, his legacy didn't need another title as such.
But he wanted it. Of course he did. He wanted the All Blacks to become the first team to win three successive World Cups. That desire wasn't driven by any personal glory, but for the legacy of the jersey.
What better way to sign off than with a third straight World Cup title? What better way to bring eight years as head coach to an end?
And so when it didn't happen, when England comprehensively outplayed the
All Blacks in the World Cup semi-final, it left a sense of shock.
The All Blacks looked broken by the end. They were shattered by the way things turned out but they found the strength of character to walk across to England's celebrating players, shake their hands and wish them all the best.
They found the strength to walk to the four corners of the stadium and thank the crowd for giving them so much support and Hansen and captain Kieran Read found the strength to front the world's media and say they were beaten by the better team.
They also found the pride to return to action six days later and play supremely well to despatch Wales and collect a bronze medal.
It wasn't what they wanted, but they played like they cared and that it was important to honour the jersey and all it stands for.
The All Blacks had failed to achieve their goal, but they were leaving Japan as winners and this was maybe a more powerful way for Hansen to sign off than had the All Blacks won the World Cup.
This showed the dignity within the team. This showed the humility of the players. They had perspective and they had a deep understanding that sport doesn't deliver on demand.
It is cruel and inhospitable at times but that's its beauty and the fact the All Blacks
I THINK WE WILL BE LEAVING BEHIND A GROUP OF MEN WHO UNDERSTAND THE RESPONSIBILITIES THEY HAVE TO THE JERSEY. THEY UNDERSTAND THEIR LEGACY AND ALL WANT THEIR STORY IN THAT JERSEY TO BE A POSITIVE ONE.’ STEVE HANSEN
of 2019 could make peace with this and behave with so much class, provided an opportunity to reflect on how far they had come in the 16 years since Hansen first got involved as an assistant coach in 2004.
The All Blacks at the start of this century were not equipped to deal with defeat. They were not equipped to deal with pressure and they were not equipped to deal with the real demands of professional rugby.
And despite the pain of the defeat to England being raw and intrusive, Hansen was able to walk off into the sunset proud of the transition the All Blacks were able to make in his time.
“Where we have got to is in stark contrast
to where we started,” says Hansen. “In 2004 we still had the hangover of the amateur game and some of the things that came with that around drinking.
“It was a natural progression that we would have to do that better and after South Africa [final Tri Nations game of 2004] it was decided what we needed to change and slowly but surely we have.
“That has been ably supported by the Super Rugby franchises back home who have got more professional and better at developing the athletes and their academies.
“So now you have got an athlete coming in who is more aware how to prepare themselves and how to be able to play rugby for a long time because it is their career and they understand that there are some things you just don't do because it shortens your rugby career.”
The change Hansen describes was more significant than stamping out poor attitudes and use of alcohol.
In his 16 years with the All Blacks, the whole culture of the team has been overhauled and a process that started when he was assistant in 2004, accelerated when he became head coach in 2012.
“Other things we have changed I guess are the difference between give nothing to your team-mate,” he says.
“It was all about protecting your own right to the jersey and now we have got a squad that wants to play for each other and help each other. The hookers are a classic example of that.
“Dane Coles came in when Keven Mealamu and Andrew Hore were around and benefited from them helping him.
And then Codie [Taylor] came in and Keven and Colesy were around.
“You could say that across the team in all positions. There has been massive competition in the last few years in the midfield. We have had five world class players competing for four positions, who have been supporting each other wonderfully well.”
That sense of the collective being bigger than the individual became impossible to ignore in the last few years.
Players, no matter their reputation or experience, were willing to put aside personal ambition and ego to accept roles that were good for the team.
Read accepted from 2016 that he would no longer be playing in the wider channels – that his role would change to be positioned closer to the ruck as a distributor and heavy hitter.
Beauden Barrett, the world's best first-five in 2016 and 2017 and on the short-list in 2018, agreed without fuss to shift to fullback in World Cup year.
He admitted that when he was first asked to do it he didn't initially love the idea but he did it without fuss or pushback and came to enjoy it.
How many other teams would have been able to successfully redeploy their superstar No 10 to accommodate a younger, less experienced player?
Sonny Bill Williams, having spent two previous World Cups as a bench player, accepted that he would be making it a third in 2019 as he couldn't force his way past the younger Anton Lienert-Brown and Jack Goodhue.
And then there was Ben Smith – a non-negotiable selection between 2013 and early 2019, suddenly dropped on the eve of the tournament.
But every test week Smith was selflessly working to prepare the others in the back three without a hint of pity for himself.
The progress the All Blacks made between 2004 and 2019 was staggering.
“I think that the group at this World Cup has been the best from a high performance point of view,” says Hansen.
“They worked extremely hard on their rehab and prehab, on their upskilling of knowledge and skills. They have great awareness of what they need to do and how to do it. They have got a voice which I think is vitally important because at the end of the day it is them that has to play out there and they have to be strong enough to voice what they feel and think.
“So I think we will be leaving behind a group of men who understand the responsibilities they have to the jersey. They understand their legacy and all want their story in that jersey to be a positive one.”
With so much change having occurred in the high performance world, it's not necessarily surprising that Hansen says the role of head coach has also evolved dramatically in his time.
Where once the job was still largely focused on the technical and tactical preparation side of things, he says it no longer is. And the profile that comes with the post has added a whole level of psychological complexity.
“The head coaching job has changed,” say Hansen. “You have become more of a strategic planner and a manager of the players and staff. Once upon a time we didn't have as many staff as we do know.
“We run a relatively small group of staff in comparison. England have about eight or nine more than us that we know about. That makes it more important to select the right coaches to come with you.
“The more successful you are the harder it is to get away from it because there is a lot of scrutiny that comes with success and a lot of expectations which I wouldn't change for the world.
“The negative is that everybody is watching what you are doing, wants to know what you are doing and has got an opinion on what you are doing so you have got to deal with all of that. If you can't cope with that you are in the wrong place.
“It is understanding what causes you as an individual pressure and then putting some plans in place about how you are going to cope with that before it happens so when it does happen you can stay relatively calm. That doesn't mean to say you don't lose it occasionally, no human being could ever say they could do that. But it is a job that has a lot of pressure and some of those pressures I have been really fortunate to be well supported.
“Some of those pressures come from home. You can't be at home much because we are away for about 200-plus nights a year. There can be some guilt about what is happening because you are not at home, but my wife Tash has been outstanding there and her support and wisdom and how she has managed me.”
That pressure to which he refers was apparent in the after match of the World Cup defeat to England where there were plenty of views about where the All Blacks went wrong and how they should have done things differently.
Hansen was quick to admit that it was a mistake to pick Scott Barrett at blindside for that game. It didn't deliver the results at the lineout they wanted and the All Blacks lost the battle at the breakdown without Sam Cane on the field.
But he wasn't willing to concede that his team had lacked something mentally on the day.
He gave an impassioned defence of his players when their desire was questioned and ended up making headlines of the sort he would not have enjoyed.
His captain, a man whom Hansen clearly feels hasn't been afforded the respect he should, looked like he was barely hanging on emotionally at the after match press conference.
To see Read, the physical evidence of his effort visible in the bruising and cuts on his face, fight back the tears as he assured everyone the commitment from his team had been total, set Hansen into lioness mode.
His cub was being attacked and he responded, protectively, emotionally and
instinctively. He snapped at a journalist who had asked Read whether the team had turned up in the right frame of mind.
He made it clear that he didn't think the question was fair or appropriate and in these days of click-bait, the whole business was broadcast around the world as if it was the only point of interest to emerge from the semi-final.
His words, then, he maybe regrets, but not the intent because the success of Hansen's eight-year head coaching tenure was built on the bonds of trust and respect he forged with his players and his ability to give those outside the team an authentic appraisal of where things were at, while managing to protect the dignity of those within.
He was true to his convictions in leaping to the defence of Read, but a few days later he was eager to explain more fully why he felt England played with the greater fervour.
“Look we didn't lose against England because of the style of game we played,” he said.
“I believe we lost because deep, deep, deep down in the pit of our guts', we didn't have what England had. That is no criticism of this group because they had a lot of want. They had a lot of hunger. But they have had no adversity and success will do that to you.
“Success is a cruel companion because what happens is that you never feel the pain that comes with a real, big adversity. So now we have got some that is one positive to come out of this tournament: that for the next four years a large group of these players and management will still be here and will be carrying that pain.
“It will be personal and that will make whatever they want even more important. If you look at England about two-thirds or more of their squad played in 2015 and that will have really, really hurt them. It will have been really personal pain that will have come out of that.
“To be bundled out of your own tournament without even making the quarter-finals, was massive.
“When you understand that, I think you can understand why they were half an inch ahead of us all game. I really need people to understand that. It is not me saying we were not hungry, because we were.
“But we can't get [what they had].
It is not not their pain to carry and it is not personal to them. They have lost games.
But losing a game in a tournament, this is why World Cups are so difficult to win because you don't get a second chance to redeem yourself.
“There is a lot of hard work and emotional energy goes into trying to win it. When that happens it is great, but when it doesn't happen it can knock your socks off a bit and it then becomes personal and look out when it becomes personal.”
Obviously, he'd rather his All Blacks team encountered their major adversity on the next coach's watch, but he has made peace with the fact it happened on his.
He says he's been surprised at how well he took the loss and the destruction of the team's dream to make history by winning a third successive World Cup.
That's not to say he found it easy, or that he's over it yet. The disappointment has still been intense, but he's realised that after telling the world that the true test of someone's character is how they cope with defeat, that he needed to buy into his own philosophy.
“You have got to acknowledge to yourself that life is not fair and sport is even less fair,” he says.
“So the fairytale isn't happening.
But I had a choice back at the end of
2015. And I had the same choice in 2017 to step away. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted to support this team and help this team achieve something we all desperately wanted.
“But it didn't work. We just lost to a team who on the day played better than we did. I don't think necessarily think they are a better team, they just played better on the day than we did and that is sport.”