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CARDIFF - Graham Henry will clear his head before deciding next month whether he wants to apply for reinstatement as All Blacks rugby coach.
The New Zealand Rugby Union today announced a review will be carried out into the failed campaign which ended in an 18-20 loss to
France here yesterday, the All Blacks' worst result in six World Cups.
The independent review would encompass all aspects of planning for the tournament, including the governance of the NZRU and its decision to support Henry's strategies such as the controversial conditioning programme.
Henry and assistants Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen will be interviewed as part of that process later this month and chairman Jock Hobbs anticipated a new coach would be appointed before Christmas.
An emotional Henry, whose contract expires early next year, said at a press conference this morning that he would spend time at home in Auckland before deciding whether to put his name back in the hat.
"(First) I'll get rid of the emotion, there's a wee bit of emotion here as you can probably see," he said.
"I don't think there's any rush for me or (wife) Raewyn to be rushing into what we'd like to do immediately in the future.
"We just need to take some time on that, maybe six weeks."
Hansen and Smith were also non-committal about their futures.
Hobbs said NZRU management remained firm that they had done nothing wrong, therefore the need for an independent reviewer.
"It would be pointless for us (NZRU) to do it, we think we've made the right decision. We may not have," Hobbs said.
"Someone independent of us may have decided we made some mistakes along the way.
"We don't think we did. We think we were very deliberate, very careful, very committed in what we did throughout this entire campaign."
Hobbs said he took for responsibility for supporting Henry's decisions and may fall on his sword, depending on what the review found.
"I don't want to make a knee-jerk reaction when emotions are fairly intense at the moment," he said.
"But I'm certainly going to reflect on it so if it's appropriate that I should stand down and quit as chairman, I will.
"We are hugely disappointed and devastated by yesterday's result."
Hobbs' gut feeling about the conditioning programme, which effectively devalued the Super 14 when 22 star players were removed from the first half, was the right concept. Scientific data suggested it was a method that could give the All Blacks an edge.
"We do not regret the decisions that we've made around the conditioning programme, that will fall into the pot of the review," Hobbs said.
"On the information provided to us, we believe it was essential that it took place both from the perspective of performance but in terms also of the welfare of players."
Hobbs and chief executive Chris Moller would attend to International Rugby Board commitments over coming weeks and the coaching appointment process would be begin upon their return to New Zealand.
Moller said it was hard to estimate the damage done to the All Blacks brand by yet another World Cup failure.
He said there would be an "opportunity cost" in terms of securing top dollar from overseas contracts and maximum revenue out of games organised outside the IRB window.
"Over the last 3-1/2 years we've made no secret of our desires to expand our revenues offshore," Moller said.
"Clearly if you're playing the World Cup champions, then there's a price. You can build and market that as something more special than those who ended up going out in the quarterfinals."
Moller didn't believe too much emphasis was placed on the World Cup at the expense of other aspects of rugby in New Zealand.
"It is extremely important. There is no doubt we have placed that as our No 1 priority in 2007 and we've certainly taken decisions to try and achieve it," he said.
"There will be a review and let's see what learnings we get from it."
- NZPA