Hansen's view carries weight of experience

Steve Hansen with All Blacks' squad - Lynn McConnell pic

Former All Black coach Steve Hansen has always been an outspoken advocate for the game and he thinks the Covid-19 pandemic may well provide a chance for the game's issues to be resolved.

In a wide-ranging two-part interview with walesonline.co.uk Hansen, who was one of the few high-profile people in the game to push for a global season, said the pandemic represented a great chance for all affected parties across the world to come together and do what was right for the game.

"It's been a long time coming because it's been needed for quite some time.

"There has been a lot of self-interest and if we don't do the right thing we could lose the game and that would be a tragedy.

"We have lost our way in rugby a little bit and we haven't been working well enough together.

"Maybe this pandemic has caused a crisis that means we have to. If that's the case, then that's one positive to come out some something that's pretty ordinary," he said.

No one has been at the sharp end of the modern game as long as Hansen. While others have come or gone, moved on to other contracts or given the game away, Hansen spent 20 years at the highest level pouring his energy into five World Cup campaigns, one with Wales and four with New Zealand, coming away with two gold medals and one bronze.

That puts him in a place to offer a rare perspective of life at the top.

No surprise surrounds the fact the 2007 World Cup quarterfinal exit had such an effect on his career.

"I think that was a turning point in New Zealand's World Cup history.

"The New Zealand Rugby Union were strong enough, smart enough, whatever you want to call it, to say we were going to come back in and do it again.

"It was the first time in All Black history a group of coaches had been given the opportunity to take the lessons they had learned from World Cup poor performances and put them into the next one," he said.

Winning in 2011 had been achieved 'by the skin of our teeth under some tough mental issues', the result of not having won the trophy in 24 years.

Apart from losing four first five-eighths they also had captain Richie McCaw with two broken bones in his foot.

"We didn't know they were broken because we didn't ask. We didn't want to know and he didn't want to say.

"What he did in that tournament was phenomenal. Mentally, he would be the toughest bloke I have had anything to do within my coaching career.

"I think he's the best rugby player the world has ever seen," he said.

But the World Cup provided its lessons and with New Zealand having learned more than any other team, it was a case of having to get things right or you lost the opportunity.

"In the one just gone, [2019] we played really good rugby, bar for one game, and unfortunately that one game says, 'right, you don't get a second chance'.

"And England, who played so tremendously well against us, couldn't back it up in the final," he said.

Hansen also admitted to not coaching as well as he might have in the 2017 series against the British & Irish Lions.

"I was pretty disappointed in myself and some of the coaching decisions I made," he said.

At the same time, he felt the series could have been significantly different.

The way the second Test was lost, after Sonny Bill Williams' red card, and with the All Blacks leading into the final moments he was frustrated at the end.

"To lose it on a penalty where a guy tackles a guy jumping to catch the ball from a poor pass when everyone knows that wasn't intentional of that rule, that's frustrating.

"Then the last game was frustrating with the decision at the end [with Ken Owens] that was so obvious to everybody, but no one wanted to admit it," he said.

Poite still chips Owens on Eden Park penalty

British & Irish Lions and Wales hooker Ken Owens, the man at the centre of the controversial conclusion to the third Lions Test against the All Blacks at Eden Park in 2017, has revealed he still gets chipped about it by the referee concerned Roman Poite.

With the scores level at 15-15 Owens was penalised for playing the ball from an offside position, a position that would have provided All Black Beauden Barrett with a chance to kick a last-minute penalty goal for New Zealand to claim the Test and the series.

Controversially, the ruling was overturned with the game and series drawn.

Owens told Joe's House of Rugby podcast, "Just before it happened, I was going, 'Right boys, exit now, let's restart, get the ball back down the field, switch on' and all the rest of it.

"[It was a case of] Don't f… up and then I f….. up!

"I went straight to Jonathan Davies, who is one of my best mates, and I said I am going to have to move to Trellech – which is about 17 miles out of Carmarthen [his home town], the most rural part of the county – and like hide away for the rest of my life.

"So there was relief in there when it wasn't a penalty," he said.

A scrum was called instead and the Lions held the All Blacks out to secure the draw.

"When Roman Poite refs me now, he does drop in a little quip now and again, with 'Stay onside this time, Ken' or something like that."

Owens said he went into the All Blacks changing room afterwards to congratulate All Blacks captain Kieran Read for winning his 100th cap but he said, 'He wouldn't really speak to me'.

"To be fair, he did apologise after the third-place play-off at the World Cup. There were emotions running high at the time," he said.

Owens added that he had enjoyed playing under coach Warren Gatland, now back in New Zealand and coaching the Chiefs in Super Rugby.

"You know exactly what he expects of you and you can just crack on then and know where you stand. He just gives you massive confidence and gets that winning mentality out of players.

"His man-management is so clever. He knows the individuals in his team and what they need to get the best out of them. Some boys just need to be hammered all the time because that's how they perform.

"Others constantly need the carrot. It was probably stick early on with me.

"He would be different to every player and he would keep changing his tack. It wouldn't be the same way all that time. That was his biggest strength," he said.

Lions legend says Twickenham Test a 'nonsense'

British & Irish Lions rugby great Willie-John McBride has poured Guinness all over Warren Gatland's suggestion to have a Lions Test against the All Blacks at Twickenham next year.

A former captain of the Lions, he led them to a series win over South Africa in 1974 on his fifth Lions tour, McBride told The Rugby Paper such a game was 'completely alien to the ethos and history of the Lions'.

"For the Lions to play a home Test match is nonsense," he said.

The Lions have only ever played once in Britain, against Argentina before the 2005 New Zealand tour.

McBride took issue with Gatland's suggestion the Test could generate $NZ10 million.

"That's the problem with the world of professional sport at the moment. It's all about money, not about sport. Therefore this [Test] is going to be played purely for money. It would be meaningless," he said.

McBride said looking at the state rugby was in at the moment it was obvious lessons should have been learnt from the mess the game had become.

"The ethos of the game has been damaged so much. It used to be run by rugby people. Now it's run by (supposed) financial wizards. The grassroots game is dying, or it certainly is in Ireland.

"If they are going to have a Lions, then have a proper Lions tour. They keep saying they can't squeeze the Lions into the curriculum once every four years yet they always seem to find room for some stupid idea to fill Twickenham.

"Surely it is possible to have a proper Lions tour. I think it's scandalous that the Premiership clubs in England are dictating the future of the sport.

"The game has gone back since the advent of professionalism. It's a mixture of Rugby League, Rugby Union and American football. A lot of it is quite boring. I played in my share of boring games but there would always be a spark," he said.

Another Lions captain, Phil Bennett [to New Zealand in 1977] said he also believed the Lions should play their games overseas and while he saw himself as old-fashioned, playing away was what made the Lions unique.

But at the same time, he saw merit in Gatland's idea, especially if one million pounds of any gate money was donated to the National Health Service.

One-off All Blacks-Lions Test appeals but not as a 'decider'

Chiefs coach and next year's coach of the British & Irish Lions team to South Africa, Warren Gatland has floated the idea of the All Blacks and Lions playing a 'series decider' ahead of next year's Lions tour.

Is it a goer?

Optimists and they are people to listen to in times of coronavirus, would say nothing is impossible.

But pessimists, and English club owners, would say no.

Before even considering the concept it is worth remembering that England's premiership club owners are already under significant pressure because they refuse to allow the Lions to have time to prepare for their tour, just as they did ahead of the 2017 visit to New Zealand. That has resulted in the tour being reduced to eight games in five weeks, compared to 10 in six as happened in New Zealand.

At the New Zealand end, in a normal world, the game would be scheduled, at Twickenham, in the vital end stages of the Super Rugby competition.

It wouldn't only involve one week out of action for New Zealand players, it would be at least two weeks to make the flight north to prepare in time.

That is presuming borders are open and flights available because in a worst-case scenario a vaccine may still not have been found – and that holds much of the answer about a return to normality.

Conjecture had centred on the Maori All Blacks providing the Lions with a warm-up game but Gatland floated the fund-raising options that a game involving the All Blacks at Twickenham might provide for New Zealand Rugby.

All that aside, could the game be described as a 'series decider.'

No doubt the winner could claim that.

In reality, it would be nothing like a continuation of that series and would have to be in the 'one-off' category.

Why?

No Kieran Read, no Owen Franks, no Jerome Kaino, no Julian Savea, no Israel Dagg, no Sonny Bill Williams and that's just from the starting XV for the third Test. Put in the reserves and Wyatt Crockett, Charlie Faumuina, Aaron Cruden and Malakai Fekitoa would all be missing as well. And that's just on the All Blacks' side.

If it could be achieved a game between the two sides would be a huge drawcard and if entered into as purely a chance to provide the Lions with warm-up potential and revenue for the All Blacks it would appeal.

But please, just let it be that.

Boks pin financial hopes on Lions tour

Sports administrators around the world are contemplating a future they have no control over and which may drastically alter the landscape when normalcy returns.

From a rugby perspective, South African administrators are looking to next year's British & Irish Lions tour to their country as a potential game saver for them.

A member of the professional board of Western Province Rugby, Raymond van Niekerk told Netwerk 24, "If the Lions tour generates a lot of income then it could save the game in South Africa."

With the world game on hold, and the prospect that rugby could remain that way until the new year, especially as a result of countries deciding to retain closed borders possibly until a vaccine has been discovered and distributed, even that remains a long shot.

"Everyone in the game around the world is under pressure. If you get a big financial incentive, it will offer a golden opportunity to save the industry – which takes to heart the interests of the franchise teams, players, supporters and interested parties," van Niekerk said.

However, he said there were major financial implications ahead for rugby unions who were already struggling. He felt South Africa was in a better position than European clubs, especially those in England, to cope with the situation.

"We're not close to cutting players' salaries," he said.

"We have a good relationship with our players. The issue is nothing that they could have controlled.

"There's a big difference compared to overseas clubs who are privately owned. They move quickly and ruthlessly. 

"We are more people-oriented because the provincial unions are involved. We want to limit the negative impact on players and personnel as much as possible," he said.

However, there are two organisations involved in the tour.

Springbok interests will have to hope that if the Lions are to be the financial lifeline for South Africa then British and Irish rugby recover sufficiently to not only retain players but to put in place effective competitions from which a Lions team could be selected.