Hansen beaten but upbeat
Fantastic, tremendous, just what the doctor ordered.
You and I might have different ways of describing New Zealand’s 24-21 loss to the British and Irish Lions on Saturday, but the defeated coach is determined to paint the result as a positive.
The All Blacks spent the best part of an hour playing with 14 players and still only got beaten on the bell. In coach Steve Hansen’s book, the performance and the things the team will take from it are enormously encouraging.
‘‘They never gave up and as a coach that’s all we can ask the players to do when you’re in that type of situation. Do I want them to play smarter? Yeah, I do. Do I want them to play better? Yeah I do,’’ Hansen said yesterday.
But he wasn’t about to bag them for their effort, after Sonny Bill Williams was sent off for a 25thminute shoulder charge on Lions wing Anthony Watson.
His only criticism concerned the way the team sought to close things out. Space wasn’t exploited the way he’d like and left the All Blacks vulnerable in the last 15 minutes.
It’s the All Blacks who traditionally get up to win games late, but a combination of being a man down and not quite nailing things meant it was the Lions who scored the last 10 points. If playing in the wrong part of the park was the problem, then that falls on the game drivers who, by then, were Aaron Cruden and TJ Perenara.
This was the All Black’s first loss since Ireland beat them in Chicago last year. The team was then coming off 18 wins in succession and got caught up in the euphoria surrounding the Chicago Cubs’ first Major League Baseball title since 1908.
‘‘We’d become tourists, rather than the team on tour,’’ said Hansen. ‘‘Last night was totally different. I don’t think there was an attitude problem, I just think we were one [player] short and we were playing a good side. So what we’ve got to learn out of last night is how to play a little smarter in those situations.’’
Whichever team the All Blacks go with at Eden Park, they’ll have to front better physically. The Lions bossed things in Wellington.
You can argue about what Williams did or how Lions prop Mako Vunipola went about introducing himself to All Black Beauden Barrett or whether flanker Sean O’Brien committed a dog act in knocking out wing Waisake Naholo. The fact is things happen on a rugby field and complaining about it would be out of order from Hansen, after some of the stuff he said prior to this match.
‘‘You’d have to be silly to think we’re all going to be nice,’’ he reiterated yesterday.
‘‘It’s a physical game and and
one of the reasons why we love rugby and why you guys as journalists love it I assume – tell me if I’m wrong – is because of the varying natures of the game and one of those natures is the brutality of intensity that comes with it.
‘‘You’re asking people to be warriors within the laws and that’s what’s happening. Is some of it close? Yeah, but it always is. There’s not a real genuine test match that doesn’t challenge you physically and mentally, it’s great for rugby, it’s great for this team of ours and we’re having to learn as a young team how to cope with that.’’
‘‘I don’t think there was an attitude problem, I just think we were one [player] short and we were playing a good side.’’ Steve Hansen, left