Sporting achievements: Biggest risk-takers

Steve Hansen (left), Graham Henry (centre) and Wayne Smith have presided over a unique year of success for the All Blacks. David Rogers / Getty Images

The record books will show 2005 to be an outstanding year for All Black rugby. They won 11 of 12 games in 2005, averaging 37 points, and in hammering the Lions 48-19 in Wellington, produced one of the most complete performances ever seen on a rugby field.

But history books only deal in cold, hard fact which means half the story about what was achieved by the coaching panel of Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith will remain untold.

They've tossed convention out the window and introduced the concept of there no longer necessarily being a first choice All Black team.

If they can win a World Cup with that thinking, their successors would be mad to ditch the idea. Then there is the way they have got the team playing - the emphasis on set-piece work has been restored without inhibiting the backs' natural flair.

It is rugby's equivalent of the total football played by the Dutch soccer team in the 1970s and New Zealand rugby is now operating a step ahead of the rest of the world.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY