Originally published in NZ Rugby World #142, page 40
The Man Who Would Be King
ASK STEVE HANSEN a straight question and you will receive a straight answer. Every All Black of the last eight years knows that. Hansen’s coaching foundation is his unwavering honesty. He’s not the type to shirk a hard call; he doesn’t invent reasons to explain a non-selection. Like all coaches he has his faults, but communication is not one of them.
Which is why there is no ambiguity, no code or indecipherable coach-speak when it comes to his ambition. The New Zealand Rugby Union have already confirmed that no matter what happens in October this year, the All Black coaching job will be made contestable. An assumption has been made that Graham Henry will stand down regardless and that Hansen, the All Black assistant coach since 2004, will make his bid for the top job. Usually a dangerous beast, assumption is in this case is right on the money.
“The key priority is winning the World Cup,” says Hansen. “That’s the reason we all put our hats back in the ring. There was huge disappointment from the last time because it was a great opportunity, we had a good side and things just didn’t go right. To fix that would be good.
“But then after that… do I want to coach the All Blacks as the head coach..? Yeah, I do. It’s not something you set out to do when you are coaching but the further you go along and the more rewards you get the more you start to say ‘yes that’s an ambition’.
“I think the two roles [assistant and head coach] are totally different. I am very lucky in the set-up we have at the moment that I get plenty of input. Wayne and I are there to challenge and bring ideas to the table as is Graham, then it is a matter of Graham leading that and driving that.
“As an assistant you are in the background a lot of the time – yes you have a big say behind closed doors and from time to time you will lead discussions within the group and in this team probably more so than in most others. But actually leading the side from the front is something different and that is what I would one day like to end up doing with a team. And the team I would like to do that with is the All Blacks.”
The All Black story has a central theme this year that makes it difficult to get too caught up in this intriguing sub-plot just yet. But if 2007 is to be a guide, by November this year, there will be no other focus than the coaching appointment.
In 2007, the nation was split, not evenly, between those who wanted Robbie Deans to be given his chance and those who felt it would be best to give Henry a reprieve. The level of debate, the range of contributors and the passion and energy devoted to the issue far outweighed the public interest that was shown in the General Election the following year.
The All Black coach, perhaps to the detriment of New Zealand, is probably the highest profile job in the country. The nation, it seems, cares more deeply about who is running the All Blacks than it does about who is running the country.
It comes with a unique set of pressures and demands that extend far beyond the ability to put a winning rugby team on the paddock. As Henry’s predecessor, John Mitchell, learned the hard way, just like politics, if your image isn’t right, if your demeanour alienates the wider stakeholders, it won’t matter a jot that the win ratio is outstanding.
The extent of the peripheral demands carry heightened relevance when it comes to discussing Hansen’s chances of fulfilling his ambition. As one of Henry’s assistants, Hansen has presided over one of the most successful periods of All Black history. Not only have the team won 85 per cent of their tests, there has been a revolution of the All Black culture. The key themes are inclusion and empowerment and a blueprint has been established that will serve the All Blacks for the foreseeable future.
There is plenty to admire on the Hansen CV, but yet, there won’t be universal support for his bid. His popularity with the public has fluctuated since 2004; the former policeman all too regularly coming across as if he was in the interview room, keen to get on with the real business of extracting a confession.
The All Blacks in their modern carnation have long ceased to be a rugby team – they are a brand and doubts will remain whether Hansen is the right man to lead the corporation in 2012.
Memories of a surly, aggressive Hansen in 2009 remain fresh. The All Blacks were under pressure, he was under pressure. He said things he would later regret and did much to damage his prospects.
But in typically honest fashion, he held the mirror up to himself and realised he needed to change. He sought external help – believed to be from former TVNZ chief executive Ian Fraser – and in the last 12-18 months, has matured into a more affable character. When once he seemed distant and aloof, he’s now engaging and at times decidedly eloquent. The transition is not superficial – it is not some act designed to win him the job he covets and then revert back to being his former self.
It is about retaining his loyalty to the players yet better managing the public appetite for honest assessment.
“There are people that I go to and talk to, particular after 2009 when I was fighting the media,” he says. “Rightly or wrongly I had had a guts’ full of a lot of things and I thought I would take them on. I found out the media are mightier than the individual and they fought back and it wasn’t pretty.
The All Black coach, perhaps to the detriment of New Zealand, is probably the highest profile job in the country. The nation, it seems, cares more deeply about who is running the All Blacks than it does about who is running the country.
“But I have learned out of that. I think over the last 12-18 months I have been working with the media. For me the team always comes first and if it is better for the team then that is what you have to do.
“The biggest help has come in how to approach it. My background is as a policeman and you don’t say too much when you are a policeman. You don’t give too much away. For me the players are the people that my loyalty goes to. I am never going to bag a player publicly.
“If I have something to say, I’ll say it to his face. At times I have been mistrusting with where we have been going with something in the media and felt I have to protect my player and done it by clamming up and saying nothing. After 2009 I sought help with that to see if I could do it a different way but to still protect the integrity of my players.
“I don’t want them to feel they are being crucified in public. I don’t have any problem telling the player the truth but sometimes you have to wash your washing in the background. At times I see coaches doing that [being publicly critical of players] and I see the devastation that has on the team.
“So, look, I understand there is a wider role having been an international coach in a country that is possibly even more passionate and intrusive, and loves the game as we do here, you know there is a bigger job than just coaching which is what you do as an assistant coach. But after this World Cup, that is what I want. I want to be able to grow. I’m ready to do that. I have done it previously and I really enjoyed it. Yes it means there is more sponsor time but these things are not difficult to do and they have to be done and I can do them well.”
A sceptical public will be hard to turn but Hansen can’t do any more than he’s done – he identified his limitations and accepted he needed help. However belligerent and cussed some fans are, they have to remember that New Zealand’s social fabric has been woven by forgiveness. Historically this is a country that has warmed to those who embrace the challenge of self-improvement.
Yet public opinion is not the major obstacle in Hansen’s quest. His fortunes are inextricably linked to the outcome at the World Cup.
To have been part of one doomed World Cup bid could be considered bad luck; to be part of two, well that seems more like carelessness. The cruel reality is that all of the victories between 2008 and October 2011 will be forgotten if New Zealand fail at the World Cup. Hansen knows that – how could he not? Between 2004 and September 2007, the All Blacks won 42 out of 47 tests. Then in October they were defeated by France in the World Cup quarter-final and that game became the epicentre of Graham Henry’s tenure.
Like Lady Macbeth cursing the damned spot, the taint of double World Cup failure won’t wash easily from Hansen’s record. So does he accept he’s doomed if it all goes pear-shaped later this year?
“If we win the World Cup it makes the opportunity to coach the All Blacks a little bit easier,” is his assessment. “But it is not guaranteed because there is a process. Again, not winning it makes it harder but that doesn’t mean to say you can’t do it, because there is a process. There will be set criteria and two of those things are going to be experience – and I have been in the international arena for the last 10 years so my experience will be very good.
“Success will be another factor and our success record has been very good. I believe we were successful with what we were doing in Wales as well. We didn’t win many games but that wasn’t what we were about at the time. We were trying to build a foundation so we could go on to win games and that Welsh team has done that – they have won two Grand Slams with most of the players we started with.
“They are the key ingredients and it will be up to the board to decide who the best person for the job is and I don’t think public opinion really comes into the decision-making process and if it does then the people making the decisions are not electing the person on the right basis. Look at last time…no one wanted us to come back but we have learned so much from that experience it will give us a big advantage this time. Sometimes you have to fail to succeed. There will be a lot of emotion around this World Cup. The country needs us to win it, the players need to win; we need to win it as coaches. It is just time…time to get the monkey off our back.”
Some might say that it will also be time to say goodbye to Hansen after the World Cup regardless of the outcome. Like American Presidents, international coaches seem to be under some kind of obligation to stand down after two World Cups, although few ever survive that long anyway.
Hansen wants to go around for a third time and if he makes it, 2012 will be his ninth consecutive year with the All Blacks. Is that too long? Is there a shelf-life, a point where a coach has to be honest and say it’s time for someone else?
“That’s a fair question,” says Hansen, “but what you have got to ask yourself is how do people like Wayne Bennett survive such a long time with clubs like the Broncos? What they do is provide a change to the environment a bit like we did in 2009 by changing our roles.
“By changing the head coach whether it’s me going into that position it will create a change. It will be a different voice, a different style. Graham and I are similar in many ways but we are different in a lot as well. The fact that Wayne [Smith] has said he is not going to be involved - there is another change. There will be enough changes in the environment to justify nine years. You don’t want to throw the baby out with all the bathwater which is something we have at times been guilty of in the past.
“As long as you are prepared to keep growing and developing as coaches as management staff and players…you are not going to turn round and say you don’t want Dan Carter because he’s been there for nine years, or Richie McCaw. What you want is for these people to keep growing and coaches are no different.”
It is apparent that Hansen has spent ample time analysing what he will need to do to fulfil his ambition. He’s clearly not blustering in on the naive notion that having been part of a successful coaching partnership that will carry him home.
He’s aware he’s had shortcomings in what his employers would call the public interface. He’s not oblivious to the wider extent of the job or dismissive of the obligations the post carries. The players have enormous respect for him and he in turn has detailed knowledge of them which allows for an element of continuity – something that has been too readily undervalued in the past.
Hansen has even spent time identifying potential assistants and personnel with whom he’d like to work. Already it’s safe to believe that he’s going to, at the very least, force the board to come up with some strong reasons as to why they should reject him.
And it’s easy to sense that’s all Hansen really wants – an honest crack at the job and a fair hearing. His mantra is ‘do what’s right for the team’ and that’s how he will rationalise things if he doesn’t get the job – someone else will have decided that’s what right for the team is that he doesn’t coach it.
Where that will leave him, he’s not too worried at this stage. He can’t see himself taking an international job elsewhere. “I don’t think you would ever say never but certainly it would be a lot more difficult to do that [coach another country].
“I’d probably say 95 per cent of me would say no that I wouldn’t want to do that. Having already coached an international side in Wales and then coming home and being part of the All Blacks set up…it just wouldn’t feel right. To me the ultimate is to coach your own country, if it’s not going to be the All Blacks then it will be the club scene.”
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