Steve Hansen’s clear run into the All Blacks coaching job belies the challenges ahead.
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Given that Steve Hansen didn’t have to do anything more arduous than win a one-horse race to become the new All Blacks coach, it’s safe to say it’s all uphill from here. Apart from the relentless, hypercritical scrutiny from a public and media who demand success with style and will be on high alert for signs that Graham Henry’s trainers aren’t being adequately filled, Hansen faces the tricky balancing act of keeping the All Blacks on top of the world while carrying out the regeneration needed to retain the World Cup.
As far as Wales’s Kiwi coach, Warren Gatland, is concerned, the next World Cup starts now. If he’s true to his word, from here on his overriding selection criterion will be: will this guy be around in 2015?
Hansen doesn’t have that freedom. For a start he’s on a two – as opposed to four – year contract, so he’ll have to deliver the goods in the short term to ensure he keeps his job through to 2015. Also, Hansen is constrained by strategic imperatives that dictate the rebuilding process must be gradual.
The All Blacks legacy and brand are built on consistent success. While other countries obviously aspire to that, coaches such as Australia’s Robbie Deans and France’s Marc Lievremont had a mandate to tinker and experiment, to promote youth and discard experience, with a view to the World Cup even if that meant mixed results in the meantime.
The pull of the black jersey keeps our leading players here when they could be earning more money overseas. The exodus has slowed – just four of the 33 World Cup winners have gone offshore and of that quartet only the ageless Brad Thorn was in the first choice starting 15 – but that trend would almost certainly be reversed overnight if Gatland’s philosophy was adopted.
Not only would the thirty-something incumbents see it as rugby’s version of a “Dear John” letter, but also players in their mid-to-late-twenties who haven’t made the All Blacks would conclude there was little point in sticking around to chase the dream because the selection focus would be primarily, if not exclusively, on younger players.
Nevertheless, a few positions will require fairly prompt attention. Corey Flynn, the youngest of the three hookers in the World Cup squad, will be a few months shy of 35 when the 2015 tournament kicks off; Andy Ellis, the youngest of the three halfbacks, will be closing on 32. From here on every time the incumbent hookers and halfbacks add to their tally of caps, it will deprive their successors of invaluable experience.
Tighthead prop Owen Franks’s spectacular development reminds us that we have a conveyor belt of talent and that no one is irreplaceable. In hindsight the hand-wringing over his predecessor Carl Hayman’s defection to Europe and the rather frantic attempts to lure him home were unworthy of New Zealand rugby.
A consequence of the Hayman fixation is that loosehead prop Tony Woodcock’s importance, and the fact that the selectors have struggled to find a satisfactory back-up for him, are often overlooked. Since Woodcock cemented his spot in the 45-6 destruction of France in Paris in 2004 – perhaps the finest performance of the Henry era – many have been called, but none have been chosen more than a few times.
Then there’s the midfield. It may – conceivably – be a coincidence, but when the All Blacks have an established, experienced midfield back combination, they do well at World Cups, and vice versa. Come the next World Cup Ma‘a Nonu will be 33 and Conrad Smith about to turn 34. You wouldn’t necessarily bet against them – or the likes of Woodcock, Jerome Kaino, even the remarkable Keven Mealamu – going the distance, but taking it for granted would be a rather heroic assumption.
The heirs apparent are Richard Kahui and Sonny Bill Williams, who will combine in the Chiefs’ midfield in the upcoming Super 15. The problem with that scenario is that, like second marriages, any long-term plan involving SBW represents the triumph of hope over experience.