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Should All Blacks coach Steve Hansen stay on through 2019?
Craig Dowd
April 12, 2016
© Michael Bradley/Getty Images for NZRU
Overhearing people talking about whether Steve Hansen should carry on as All Blacks coach until the 2019 Rugby World Cup got me thinking.
Let's say first up that choosing the All Blacks coach is not a democratic choice. It's about running a big business - the best way you can - and that's what the All Blacks are: big business. If you have a chief executive who delivers time and time again and gets the results you are asking for, you don't go and change him just for the sake of change.
I think it's really, really important that there are developing coaches out there and there's always a role for them if they are good and proven; but they've got to be better, or those in place stop delivering results.
It's a good thing that New Zealand have so many coaches out there delivering for other countries and clubs. And if needs be, they may be considered back here should the situation ever arise.
But if you consider the Hansen decision from a "pros and cons" position, it might look like this.
From the cons points of view, out of form players probably don't see a pathway with the old coach.
Can the coach keep things fresh? By the time Rugby World Cup 2019 rolls around he will have been involved in the coaching of the side for 15 years.
Will he have the same spark and enthusiasm about the role after all he's been through, including two triumphant World Cup campaigns?
If he feels like he needs a new challenge then he has to be honest with himself. If he's not as enthusiastic as he was when he got the job on day one, and there's only one person who can answer that, I hope he can be that.
To my mind he has been absolutely fantastic, but he will only ever be the one who knows.
The way he has relaxed in that role as All Blacks coach is great to see because his personality and dry sense of humour have come through and I have no doubt the players see that.
Whereas under Graham Henry, he seemed just a little bit under pressure. Again, it's experience isn't it?
There are several negatives, but by the same token we should be looking to the future.
© LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
From the pros consideration, it's a fact the McCaw-Carter era is gone. There is going to be a whole bunch of new selections this year, so it will be a new All Blacks which would be quite exciting and appealing for Hansen.
He's got new management coming into the team and he has got a proven model. And I think it is a great opportunity for New Zealand Rugby to replicate what Graham Henry did by bringing in some seriously good coaches and doing the same for Hansen.
Rather than out with the old and in with the new, NZR could intertwine the two of them and let Steve Hansen mentor and transition the new person into the new role.
I think the days of getting rid of a coach following his four-year tenure, or a failed RWC campaign, and starting with a blank piece of paper are gone. The model that is working in New Zealand at the moment is just too good to do that.
It's something that if Hansen is willing and able, and wants the job, then as far as I am concerned he could have it for life.
At any level there is pressure on coaches and at the very highest level, which is the All Blacks, who are the superpower of world rugby, it is the one job that comes with huge expectations and whoever takes over from Hansen - whenever that may be - has got a huge pair of shoes to fill.
I really like the way the All Blacks management is set up right now and I relate it to a story I was told years ago that has always stuck with me.
It's about Henry Ford who made a claim to someone in the media that he was the smartest person in the world. The media reacted by saying Ford was hugely arrogant for making such a huge statement. Ford countered by asking the media to meet him in his office at 10 o'clock the next morning with five questions that would prove he was the smartest man in the world.
© Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
The media turned up at his office the next day and presented him with five questions that there was no way he would know the answer to. When the first question was asked, he turned to his right-hand man and asked him to go and find the answer to the question. He repeated that with four other advisors as the questions came up.
He proved his point by showing that while he might not know the answers to the questions himself, he surrounded himself with people who did have the answers. And that is what I see in the All Blacks management.
They're building a team of good coaches around them. It's not around one person. That's the philosophy the All Blacks have adopted.
There is no one person who has all the answers; there's a brains trust who bang heads together and have robust debates and find new ways of trying to come up with solutions.
It is a tough job because there are those who will expect the All Blacks to win the next World Cup. If they did win it then clearly Hansen would have the Midas touch.
But if you look at the situation right now, the All Blacks have lost six major contributors to their game and there are others who have gone; but you could say we have lost just over one-third of an All Blacks starting team.
A rebuilding era is set to start and that will begin with most reasonable people's expectations not as high as last year. In fact, I think there is more excitement around about who is going to fill the boots of those who have gone.
As it stands we couldn't pick the starting XV at the moment. We have to go through and develop players. Sam Cane is a young player who is playing some really good rugby and has a lot of potential. So too Aaron Cruden, but they don't come with the experience of what it takes to win a World Cup.
I'm not saying they won't get there but you can't, all of a sudden, have experience without going through the process of earning scars that come with it. At the end of their careers Richie McCaw and Dan Carter picked up on those scars. They had the hurts and they knew what it meant to fail. Unless you go down the hard road you don't actually learn what the true treasure is at the end.
In terms of a potential successor I look at the Chiefs and what has happened since Dave Rennie took over. From day one he delivered and they won the competition in his first year and repeated in his second. In the subsequent years they've been there or thereabouts.
© Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
He has the touch, the manner, the ability to develop players, and when you look at his selections, he doesn't always have the star out there but he will have the next star coming through. He has an eye for talent and for players who will grow in their role.
The Chiefs have had bad luck with injuries right through his time but he has been able to bring through the second-tier players and have them step up and deliver.
His selection policies have been absolutely bang-on from the point of view of his squad and not just his starting XV.
Winning a Super Rugby campaign is based on the strength of your squad. Keeping all players integrated in the squad, keeping them happy and keeping them focused throughout a campaign is the sign of a good coach.
It is very easy for a player left on the bench and not getting much, or any, game time to feel despondent and left out, but the key to good management is keeping those guys hungry.
Rennie followed the Henry Ford principle. He brought in Wayne Smith and surrounded himself with good coaches like Andrew Strawbridge, Kieran Keane and others.
The key these days is understanding that no one man can do it all and Rennie has shown he understands that. I would like to see him work under Hansen to allow for the transition, but only when Hansen is ready.
If Hansen wanted to go through until 2023 I would give him the red carpet, but it should be his call.
© Craig Dowd
Should All Blacks coach Steve Hansen stay on through 2019?
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