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SYDNEY - Crowded House, pavlova, Phar Lap, Robbie Deans. Another Kiwi gem became Ocker-ised yesterday and the locals seemed to be loving every second of it.
Especially when Deans was asked whether the Wallabies could win the 2011 rugby World Cup. "No doubt," he told the Transtasman media gaggle, with the steely gaze of a coach whose cv contains four Super 12/14 titles.
Little wonder Australian Rugby Union (ARU) deputy chief executive Matt Carroll flanked Deans at a 20-minute press conference with the smug grin of a man who'd opened his Christmas presents a fortnight early.
The Sun-Herald newspaper's back page today said it all: "Aussie Robbie - why the All Blacks should be anxious about coach Deans." Even the critics who choked on their Tooheys New when reading Deans was a shoo-in for the job might have mellowed.
Former test lock and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons, who wrote Deans' appointment was a "humiliating day" for Australian rugby, sat stern-faced at ARU headquarters on Sydney's leafy North Shore.
He'd claimed there was a large section of the rugby community who were "deadset against" Deans' appointment. At the end he strode up, smiling, shook his hand and said: "congratulations, Robbie".
Deans either hadn't read FitzSimons' bleatings or didn't care. "Thanks, Peter," he beamed back.
Former Wallabies coach John Connolly today wrote of his congratulatory phone call, that Deans had his 100 per cent support, and that he was the best candidate by "a fair distance".
If anyone was calling him a traitor in red-and-black country, Deans didn't care either. "It doesn't matter what role you're in, you get flak, it's part of the territory."
Deans smiled again, saying he was sure Canterbury fans would be "pleased to see me" when the Wallabies play there next. Nor was he intent on proving a point to the New Zealand Rugby Union, who'd rejected his All Blacks application. What he called "negative motivation" wasn't in the Deans textbook.
He was overwhelmed by the reception from his Crusaders players at last Friday's training session. "It was fantastic, they were generally delighted for me. Brad Thorn particularly so."
Excitement was Deans' over-riding emotion yesterday. His family - wife Penny and children Sam, 17, Annabel, 16, and Sophie, 11 - seemingly share it.
Deans told NZPA of his family's instant seal of approval, soon after his much-publicised meeting with ARU boss John O'Neill in Paris in late October.
"When I caught up with John for coffee I sent a text back saying 'just ignore the papers', and my daughter said 'what do you mean, I've already packed my bikini'."
Deans, 48, wants his family to live near ARU headquarters at St Leonards, just a few minutes over the Harbour Bridge, so he doesn't "kill time" getting to work.
Then came the important question: does he know the words to Advance Australia Fair? "I've received those words, you can rest assured I haven't been appointed for my singing."
Former Queensland coach Bob Templeton got the credit for first piquing Deans' interest in coaching after a chance off-field meeting in the 1980s. And former New Zealand cricket captain and India coach John Wright's recent encouraging words confirmed he was doing the right thing.
Deans was reasonably sure he'd have an all-Australian coaching support crew, thereby ruling out a reunion with John Mitchell. "One Kiwi might be enough," he said.
His last act of a hectic morning was to oblige a Sunday newspaper request to don a Wallabies jersey, then sign it. He did both, with one more grin.
Oi oi oi.
- NZPA
