Rugby: All Blacks get pep talk from man in charge

Dan Carter snacks on sushi after a training session in Funabashi in the lead-up to tomorrow night's Bledisloe Cup match against the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images

John Key's love affair with the All Blacks continues today when he gives them a motivational team talk in Tokyo ahead of the Bledisloe Cup match against the Wallabies tomorrow night.

But it may not be one-way. The team and coach Graham Henry requested the talk, according to the Prime Minister - who described himself as a former hooker and halfback without talent in Burnside Rugby Club.

"They asked me to," Mr Key stressed yesterday in response to critics who think he is foisting himself on the sporting heroes for his own benefit.

As a professional sports team they were in to win, Mr Key said, and so he generally did not go and see the All Blacks before a game.

"But they are always inviting me back to the changing room and I've been back two or three times."

Delighted by the win in Sydney, Dan Carter and Ma'a Nonu gave him a hug when he turned up in the dressing room afterwards.

In an interview with the Herald yesterday, Mr Key said he talked to All Black captain Richie McCaw and while of course there were differences, he saw some similarities between their two jobs.

"There is a lot of pressure on you to perform. You are only as good as your last game. Everyone has a view on how you can do your job."

If the All Blacks had a bad week they had to block out "all that negative criticism and enormous public pressure that builds on you and deliver on the night".

"In a lot of senses being a professional sports person is very similar to being a politician. You are constantly judged in the media. There is quite a range of commentators who will have a view.

"Things are fluid and will range around a lot and I think you have to have your own sense of what it is that is important, where you are going, and confidence in the plan you have got."

Mr Key said you had to take on genuine criticism but block out things that were either negative or disruptive.

"It's about confidence. If you really think about sport, the All Blacks when they are playing Australia or South Africa or teams of that magnitude, it is nothing to do with physical ability. They will be fairly similar. They may have individual players who are stars but as a general rule a lot of it is about their confidence and determination."

The Prime Minister also outlined what he will and won't talk to the All Blacks about this afternoon when he meets them at the National Stadium in Tokyo and then watches the Captain's Run.

"I'm not going to talk to them about what it means to New Zealand when New Zealanders watch the All Blacks play because I think that is self-explanatory.

"I am going to talk a bit about determination and how they have got a long-term objective which is to win the Rugby World Cup and why that's a campaign and they need to put that in perspective."

Mr Key believed the All Blacks would win but it would be a tighter game than before because there was "less to play for".

They had won 3-0 already against Australia for the cup and typically the All Blacks did not play as well at the end of the year, as was evident in many of the games he saw when he worked for Merrill Lynch in London.

Mr Key said he used a different sort of motivation technique on the caucus: every Tuesday he goes through the polling and outlines what has gone right in the past week and what had gone badly and how things could be improved.