All Blacks assistant reflects on missed detail in preparation

Although the July series against France is over, All Blacks assistant coach Scott Hansen won’t be resting on his laurels, as they get ready for a huge Rugby Championship, which is underway in mid-August.

The All Blacks were successful during a tough three-match series at home against France, winning all three encounters in Dunedin, Wellington, and Hamilton, respectively.

The victories didn’t come without hard work, challenge, and moments where the All Blacks were far from their best, but Hansen tells Jason Pine from Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Sport radio show that they were also impressed with what the French brought to the series.

“But the feeling from the group was, we lacked a little bit of cohesion out there at times that probably didn’t allow us to find the game that we wanted to against the French,” Hansen tells Piney.

“The French did a really good job adapting their game, definitely defensively around it. We’ll probably feel watching that game again, we didn’t quite recognise some opportunities that were in front of us around that game.”

Hansen, on the other hand, was happy to see some of the skills on show from their young players, who may not have had that much experience at Test level.

“Taking all that away from being a grumpy old coach and being a positive coach, I’ll swing that around now, some fantastic displays from some young men put under a lot of pressure in a Test match moment, the response from them was so encouraging.

“Really good for us as a group to take some learnings from a performance that will need to be better moving into Argentina. So overall, there’s a lot that we can take out of the game.”

Despite the All Blacks having to make a late change just before kickoff with Luke Jacobson pulling out due to a quad injury, Hansen felt like they adjusted well and were ready for a moment like that.

“We focus on preparation and everyone being ready, and if that moment comes, you need to be ready, and last night was an example of that.

“Christian Lio-Willie obviously onto the bench, Du’Plessis did a fantastic job during the warm-up when Luke unfortunately took a knock to the leg, and we felt he wasn’t able to start, therefore not able to finish the Test.

“Dupes did a great job, 80 minutes, went to eight, and they manoeuvred really quickly with the group. So the process of preparing through the week again was highlighted last night, and the need for it.”

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Argentina

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The All Blacks were held up on multiple occasions on Saturday in Hamilton, something Hansen admits he could’ve set them up better for in the week, as the opportunities were there to be taken.

“Different body position, understanding where the space was and understanding how we can work as individuals or doubles. It was an area of the game that last 10 meters for us, we just didn’t get it right as well as we should have last night.

“The space was across the field, and it’s not always trying to run over the top of people, so we’ll definitely have some good learnings there.

“As a coach, I thought I needed to prepare them better than what they played around that area of the game, so definitely, a lot of things around body height, where we were on the field, the ability to move to the space and even use our individuals a wee bit differently.”