'Totally different': Top coach gives warning to Black Ferns' male coaching trio

New technical coach to the Black Ferns Wayne Smith during a training session at Linwood Rugby Club, Christchurch. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

By Fiona Tomas, UK Telegraph

Simon Middleton, the England head coach, has warned the Black Ferns' new star-studded male coaching trio that leading a women's team will be "totally different" to anything they have experienced in the men's game.

New Zealand Rugby formally unveiled three highly-respected men's coaches to salvage the Black Ferns' World Cup hopes, less than six months out from the tournament in October.

Wayne Smith will lead the side as director of rugby and will be supported by Sir Graham Henry and scrummaging expert Mike Cron, with all three having been involved in the All Blacks' 2011 and 2015 World Cup triumphs.

Whitney Hansen, the daughter of former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, and long-standing Black Ferns coach Wesley Clarke will act as assistants.

Smith has a formidable track record as a professional coach in the men's game.

In addition to his back-to-back World Cup successes, he has acted as a mentor to several household All Blacks names, including Sonny Bill Williams and Beauden Barrett.

Wayne Smith during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at London Irish on October 20, 2015 in London, United Kingdom. Photo / Getty Images.

But he and his colleagues have had limited exposure to women's high-performance environments and must get to grips with a struggling Black Ferns outfit still reeling from a damning cultural review which highlighted there had been "insufficient investment in understanding how to coach women" within the female set-up.

"It'll be really interesting because I don't know how much Wayne or Mike or any of the others have worked in the women's game and you know, the knowledge part is obviously huge," said Middleton ahead of England's penultimate Women's Six Nations fixture against Ireland on Sunday."

It takes time to get to understand the best ways of working, so it'll be a really big challenge for them."

When pressed on what those differences were, Middleton said: "It's different ways of working, making sure that information, communication lines are clearer, probably, in the women's game than the men's.

"It's just a different psyche and a different approach. Certainly, there's no right or wrong either way, but it'll be interesting for them, I think, because it's totally different."