KEY POINTS:
All Blacks coach Graham Henry has given his blessing to assistant Steve Hansen to pursue the vacant Crusaders Super 14 coaching post.
Hansen revealed yesterday he had applied to succeed Robbie Deans as Crusaders coach and hoped to continue in his role as All Blacks assistant, in charge of the forwards.
Henry was happy to give Hansen his full backing.
"He thinks he'll be a better coach if he coaches more consistently over the year and I'm totally in support of that," Henry said.
"Whatever he gets a buzz out of and gets the most out of himself is the most important thing. If Steve thinks he can do that, I'm quite in favour of that."
Five applications have been received for the Crusaders head coach job and nine for the assistant's role.
A shortlist of three was likely to be drawn up today, with interviews to be held next month.
Hansen said applying had been on his mind since Deans accepted the Wallabies job early this year.
"Once Robbie had made his decision clearly the job was going to come up, so I started thinking about it then, but only confirmed it in my own mind in the last couple of weeks," Hansen told The Press newspaper.
"The closing date was the other day so I thought I had better make a decision."
Hansen was assistant coach with the Crusaders under Wayne Smith in 1999 and then for two years under Deans in 2000 and 2001.
He then succeeded Henry as Wales head coach for four seasons before linking with Henry and Smith with the All Blacks in 2004.
"It's something (head coach) I would like to do because it's a good challenge and it's something I haven't done for a while. You coach because you enjoy the challenge and it's what I need at the moment.
"Ironically, I would probably end up spending more time at home. That would be a great bonus.
"Everyone is getting excited about it but there's a lot of water to go under the bridge. The race hasn't even started. Though I've expressed an interest we don't know all the rules and until we get that clarified we deal with it and wait and see."
Deans' assistant Mark Hammett and Tasman's Todd Blackadder were earlier regarded as the main contenders to take over the Crusaders, with Deans having put them forward as strong candidates upon departure.
- NZPA
