All Blacks coaching conundrum

BY GREG FORD

The official line is Graham Henry doesn't know, nor does Steve Hansen, and the third of the three wise men, Wayne Smith, is in the same boat.

All Blacks manager Darren Shand is also in the dark, but "hopes to know by the end of March" who will be coaching the All Blacks' forwards, attack and defence.

That's when a decision should be made by all four men on whether to persevere with last year's big switcheroo.

Head coach Henry took on the added responsibility of coaching the forwards, passing his defence duties to Smith, and Smith's attacking portfolio to Hansen.

The move was widely heralded as a success. But Hansen made some noises at the end of the northern tour that he wanted his old job back.

Which begs the question, will he get it? Will the trial become permanent?

Because the All Blacks' coaches are off limits to the media we don't and won't know, for several weeks yet, which quite frankly is a tad disappointing.

Questions abound, don't they?

Questions such as: in exactly what capacity is Steve Hansen attending Super rugby matches? As a forwards expert, attacking mastermind, or both?

In what capacity is Henry acting in when he has a quiet word in the ear of a lock or prop when he does the rounds at various training venues?

Are they to take on board his thoughts when there's a chance Hansen will be calling the shots in a few months time, and presumably play a pivotal part in selecting the forwards?

How seriously therefore do they take his advice? And do they run the risk of sending mixed messages to the players?

There's also the not insignificant question relating to whether they have told their employers at the New Zealand Rugby Union of their intentions?

Given all three men slot in somewhere at the top of that organisation's payroll, a courtesy call would not go amiss.

Shand did his best to answer all of the questions above.

Even though he didn't have many answers, they were nonetheless illuminating.

"We had our annual performance review last week, the four of us, like everyone has in a normal organisation," Shand said.

"From that, given all of us only really started working again last week, we will spend time on it in the next month, looking at what happened at the end of last year and through the year.

"We get a monstrous amount of feedback from a diverse group of people and, after digesting that, we will work out who does what."

Richie McCaw and other senior players will be involved in the decision-making process.

"We have a couple of planning meetings that will include some of the players over the next month.

"We have not really put a timeline on it as such, in the sense we know what date we will announce it, or anything like that. We will see how these discussions go and when we feel it is the right time to let everyone know we will."

When asked what each of the three coaches want to do, he said: "I honestly don't know".

"It could be something we come to quickly or not but I would hope that towards the end of March we would have things pretty nailed. That would be my hope."

Shand said there was no risk the All Blacks would start the year on the back foot by not knowing now.

He said each coach took a "generic" approach to selection until the business end of the Super rugby competition.

"They are looking at how the game is developing and will look at key individuals as the match intensity increases close to the playoffs. They have always operated that way and one of the beauties of the group is they have all been head coaches. They all have the skills across the board to make an assessment on a player.

"If Smithy is the only one at a game and needs to look at a forward then he could do that justice."

- © Fairfax NZ News