Hansen tries to keep up with the Jones boyo

EDINBURGH - British rugby writer Stephen Jones' baiting has had the desired effect on the All Blacks.

Assistant coach Steve Hansen yesterday took issue with more anti-New Zealand sentiment in Jones' Sunday Times newspaper article, particularly his suggestion that Hansen belittled England prop Andy Sheridan at the press conference after the All Blacks' win at Twickenham.

"Is it all right for Stephen Jones to belittle people? He's pretty good at it," Hansen said.

"Once again Stephen Jones is struggling to write anything positive, and at the risk of calling him a name ... whatever he writes doesn't particularly bother me."

Hansen was adamant that Carl Hayman got the better of Sheridan in the scrum battle at Twickenham, and suggested Sheridan's performance against a weak Australian scrum had been talked up a week earlier.

"We saw last week what England were capable of doing to seven men and I thought we came out on top."

He later told British journalists he was "looking forward to reading what Stephen Jones had to say", after his past criticism of New Zealand forward play.

Welshman Jones wrote the All Blacks launched into a "craven barrage of cheating" when they had three players sinbinned in the second half.

He also called for the haka to be banned and said the All Blacks had become "impossibly pompous and precious" about it.

- NZPA