Phil Gifford: A conversation with Sir Steve Hansen

All Blacks coaches Ian Foster and Steve Hansen during their press conference in Tokyo. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

OPINION:

Asking Sir Steve Hansen this week how important selection is with a rugby team, he recalled wise words from his late father Des.

"My father once said to me, 'Son, there are plenty of good coaches, and there are plenty of good selectors. But there aren't many who can do both. So, if you're going to coach, work on being a good selector, because 80% of the job is done if you've picked the right players.'"

The apex of Hansen's selections probably came in 2012, his first year as head coach, when, with fellow selectors Wayne Smith and Grant Fox, a remarkable group of newcomers to the All Blacks, including Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith, Sam Cane, Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith, Dane Coles, and Julian Savea were chosen. All would go on to play integral roles in the 2015 World Cup victory.

The process of selection is massively different in the professional era. The late Jack Gleeson coached the Graham Mourie-led side who in 1978 completed the All Blacks' first Grand Slam tour of Britain and Ireland. But his earlier introduction as the junior on the All Black selection panel was a shock to him. Gleeson, a quietly spoken, hugely intelligent man, would say to me: "I was told I could pick one player, and then I had to just shut up and make the tea."

Hansen was rightly horrified when I told him the Gleeson story. In the 16 years Hansen was in the All Black camp, selection was an exhaustive, but inclusive, and extremely well-informed business.

"I think 95% of New Zealanders who follow rugby could pick 95% of the [All Black] team. It's the 5% that you have to take your time with, and make sure everybody on the panel gets the opportunity to have their say. That could take a couple of days, even a couple of weeks."

A few weeks after the start of Super Rugby, every selector starts drawing up a list of people in each position, putting them in ranking order.

"You pick yours, I'll pick mine. It's only a paper team," says Hansen. "When the nitty gritty comes, what we used to do was write your own team up, and all the players we agree on, they're in. Where there's uncertainty, we keep having conversations until there's no uncertainty."

What's very different from the vast majority of us who are unofficial amateur selectors is how much detail the All Blacks selectors have on the candidates.

"We're totally informed about all the things that we're looking for," says Hansen. "Whether it's fitness data, skill data, home life, injuries. A lot of players are playing with niggles from injuries. Some are playing with something in the background in their lives that could have an effect on form."

Selectors at test level can also look beyond current form, if they know what a player is capable of.

Former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Thomas Coughlan.

"Ma'a Nonu was a unique sort of individual who sometimes struggled at Super Rugby, but he certainly never struggled at test rugby. The pundits who said you can't pick Ma'a Nonu, he's playing poorly, they weren't taking into account that we had all the confidence in the world that when it comes to test rugby, he would get it right.

"So, when you're getting down to the final call you've got guys who you know have the mental fortitude and the skill level to play at that level, because they've proved it. Whereas a guy that hasn't been in that arena, you have to look into the future. You want to know what his mental fortitude is like, and you're watching later in the Super competition when the pressure's on whether he's coping okay."

Despite knowing everything from blood pressures to conjugal situations about professional players, there's still room, says Hansen, for intuition in selection.

In 1997 Hansen was heading the Canterbury Rugby Union's academy for young players.

He'd seen a young prop from Wairoa called Greg Somerville at a national Colts trial. "I said to [then CEO of the Canterbury union] Steve Tew: 'We need to have a look at this kid.' The Canterbury Colts were playing the Central Vikings Colts in Napier, so we went up. Greg was packing against Campbell Johnstone [later an All Black in 2005]. Campbell was a great scrummager, and the Canterbury side had a very good forward coach in [former All Black hooker] John Mills.

"Tewy said to me [about Somerville], 'Aw, he's no good. He's been hammered in the scrums.' I said, 'Yeah, he has, but have you seen what he's been doing around the park? As a prop he's been smoked. Our job is to make him a good scrummager. We can't teach him some of the other stuff he's doing. I like him.' Tewy said, 'Ah well, you're doing the selecting.' So, I got to grab him.

"We can get caught up in what people can't do. But that's the job of the coach, to teach him how to. But if you can do things that not many people can do, then you've got talent. Props then couldn't catch and pass like Yoda [Somerville] did. Can we coach him to get better at the scrum? Yes, we can."

And they did. In 2003, by then well on his way to playing 66 tests, Somerville told me: "Steve got me down to Christchurch, and once I was here he pretty much took me under his wing. He made sure that life outside rugby was going okay, and that I was happy down here. A lot of the technique that I still use now has come from him, or from people that he put me onto."

Hansen says he believes "300%" that a Godsend for the game here is that while discussions between Super coaches and the All Blacks selectors can be intense, ultimate control of Super Rugby and the All Blacks rests with New Zealand Rugby. "The NZRU may get a lot of things not right, but that was something they got completely right. That's allowed us, I believe, to stay as a united group, compared to the likes of England.

"There's a battle at times between what's right for the Super team, and what's right for the All Blacks. Most of the time it has nothing to do with ego, it's because you've got two different agendas. The Super coach's job is to win the competition. Sometimes they may forget their job is also to improve their players so they get into the national team. If you always go back to what's right for the player you can't go too wrong."