Rugby: Dingo Deans comfortable across the Tasman

Wallabies coach Robbie Deans. Photo / Dean Purcell

The Dingo Deans moniker is getting a more permanent feel about it.

And the transplanted former All Black fullback did nothing to dispel that notion yesterday when quizzed by the Weekend Herald.

Scuttlebutt suggests that the Australian Rugby Union board has endorsed a rollover contract for Deans and that he has given his approval.

"My sole focus and priority is to do well this year," was his coyretort.

"If, off the back of those efforts, the organisation is still keen to have me around, then that's great.

"I don't see my work as concluded, I'd like to continue."

Certainly sounds more Dingo Deans than anything else.

Deans and his family have thrived in Sydney.

He knew that the change would broaden his coaching thrust and it had not disappointed him.

The challenge had been to take the Wallabies, who were coming to the end of a cycle in 2008, reconstruct them and rebuild them into an international force.

"The job does not change a lot, people observe outcomes and think the experiences within are radically different when they are not, it is only the results," Deans, said.

"The key for us is to keep going and not be distracted. Games evolve, teams refresh and we have to keep practising."

His choice for Wallaby captain, Rocky Elsom, was injured againbut the best medical advice suggested that he would return in six weeks.

"It shouldn't rule him out in terms of the Wallaby programme," Deans said.

Another person of interest, Dan Vickerman, would return from studies in Europe to rugby in Australia in about a fortnight, while wing Drew Mitchell had undergone successful surgery on his ankle but remained touch and go for the World Cup.

Deans and Graham Henry, the man who beat him for the All Black job twice, were centre stage at a charity lunch in Sydney yesterday.

Deans was invited last year and accepted, and admitted he only found out later that Henry would be sharing the top billing.

There was no word on whether the pair were travelling together tomorrow to Brisbane for the Reds-Crusaders clash.

Deans said regular appraisal of the pair's relationship was a media and public choice.

"It is a point of interest which is great if it generates interest in the game, but really it is all about the All Blacks against the Wallabies."