Calm Hansen surprises Coles
All Blacks hooker Dane Coles jogged into the Forsyth Barr Stadium sheds at halftime expecting coach Steve Hansen to give the team a rocket.
Sure, they were down by just three points (17-14) against the Wallabies, but they’d just produced an error-riddled first half in Dunedin and Coles couldn’t help but expect a red-faced coach to confront the team.
But a Hansen rev-up wasn’t behind the All Blacks rallying and going on to beat the Wallabies 35-29 and lock up the Bledisloe Cup for a 15th consecutive year.
‘‘To be honest, he was actually pretty calm,’’ Coles said. ‘‘I was expecting it to be the other way, but he was really calm at halftime.’’
Having conceded the last 28 points in Sydney a week ago, the All Blacks sleep-walked out of the gates, falling into a 17-0 hole inside the first 16 minutes.
But they hit back with tries to wing Rieko Ioane and halfback Aaron Smith, who darted over after the halftime hooter had sounded.
‘‘There’s no point rocketing them,’’ Hansen said. ‘‘Sometimes there is, but in this case we didn’t think it was a lack of attitude. We probably thought we were too keen . . . it was like a young fella having his first day at school, you don’t know what’s going on.’’
Hansen lamented the errors which led to the Wallabies’ three first-half tries, with captain Kieran Read (missed tackle), halfback Smith (defensive breakdown) and fullback Damian McKenzie (intercept) the culprits.