Hansen keen to prove the critics wrong

14 April 2012

Wales's latest Kiwi coach leaves the job insisting the nation needs to stop the squabbling and plan properly for the future, Ian Chadband reports.

During his two-year starring role in the enduring soap opera that is Welsh rugby, Steve Hansen has battled through civil war, helped institute a revolution, been slaughtered for overseeing their worst-ever sequence of international defeats and witnessed more infighting than at the bottom of a thousand New Zealand rucks.

Only this week an old hero, Jonathan Davies, after noting how Hansen earned £208,000 a year, effectively dismissed the Kiwi's reign as national team coach thus: "It is very difficult to see what technical improvements have been made over the past two years. It is certainly not reflected on the field."

One rugby website, reflecting on the latest classic Welsh Rugby Union farce surrounding the appointment of Hansen's successor, posted a picture of him looking even more lugubrious than usual and added the caption: "You can tell - he'll really miss Welsh rugby."

Here's the odd thing. He reckons he actually will. "I'd be lying if I said it hadn't been a frustrating experience at times but I wouldn't have swapped it for the world," he reflected at the team's Richmond hotel before his penultimate match in charge tomorrow.

Take the farce which saw the WRU give Hansen's job to Mike Ruddock, who didn't even apply for it, while not bothering to tell Gareth Jenkins, who, along with a nation, believed the job was his. "They keep hurting themselves, there's no doubt about it," said Hansen of this familiar public relations PR calamity.

"I don't think any other rugby country goes through what we go through down in Wales. All the in-fighting, political nonsense, people with different agendas - like those who still believe only a Welshman can coach a Welsh team. If you survive it all, you have got to come out the other end a better person."

Well, he has survived and smiles that his next job, as Graham Henry's All Blacks assistant, will be a piece of cake in comparison.

He's prepared to go out fighting too, with a bullish riposte to those who point to his Six Nations record of just two wins in 12 and ask what improvements he has made.

"Changing players' attitudes, self-belief, showing them what professionalism is about, getting them in their best-ever physical shape, helping introduce the critical move into regional rugby," he answered.

"I can look myself in the mirror and say 'you did the best you could do under the circumstances'.

Their form has been as maddening as ever - great against Scotland, awful against Ireland, competitive in defeat by France.

But the critics, he said, have to get real.

"We have had no success since the game went professional. It's a different game from the seventies now but there's been no change in public expectation and that's the hardest thing to deal with."

He felt the criticism of a band of distinguished former internationals was wearying. "The sad thing is that the seventies' team was so great but at times it now becomes embarrassing because you know it's the same people saying the same thing.

"If they just let this team mature, it'll end up being one that can challenge the best. If they keep pounding them they'll break their spirit."

Hansen's own spirit never was broken. He's a gruff realist but the hidden romantic in him still persuades him the signature flourish to his reign may yet be written at Twickenham.

More important, though, was that Welsh rugby should embrace the future in unison. "The key is to stop the infighting," he said. "Everyone's got a comment about Welsh rugby, even uninformed people. My message would be for them to get informed or, better still, keep quiet. Instead, get in there and help fix it."

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