Being a coach involves more than just coaching

As a Kiwi I’m interested to see who the next All Blacks coach will be when Hansen retires after the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

The interview on the Devlin Radio Show during the week attracted my attention because it alluded that Hansen’s retirement may not be a done deal.

Hansen discussed the passion he still feels for coaching and the fact there’s nothing else he’d rather do: “I’m not silly enough to think it can go on forever. At some point when that passion wanes or it’s right for the team that someone else to do it I’ll step aside”.

So as his passion is still right up there and it’s still (presumably) right for the team that he’s in charge, the inference is he might be staying on. I’d be quite happy about that.

Regardless, a coach’s time to retire will always eventually come. Hansen’s been with the All Blacks since 2004, and was with Wales the two years before that. Coaching internationally since 2002 must have had a toll.

That’s 15 years of high-pressure, lots of travel and time away from home and family. Sir Alex Ferguson, might have been “in charge of Manchester United for 26 seasons”, but I would think that coaching the All Blacks is one of the hardest coaching gigs around.

There’s been a lot of speculation about suitable heirs-apparent. People obviously have their favourites; I know I have mine. But the articles that are currently doing the rounds started me thinking about the role of coach, and what it entails. Particularly, off the field.

The job has a lot more to it than the actual coaching aspects. One of the most public parts of the job, like it or not, is dealing with the media – never an easy task. When I think of New Zealand’s 2017 international rugby fixtures thus far, one of the things that has stood out for me is the behaviour of the coaches in the post-match media conferences.

Gatland, Cheika and Hansen have three very different approaches to the media. As previously stated, the media isn’t always easy to deal with. Some journalists take the old adage ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ to heart. They pry and pester to get their story. But this is nothing new, and if it’s something a person doesn’t like dealing with, or can’t handle, then perhaps they’re in the wrong job.

(AAP Image/Paul Miller)

Warren Gatland’s admission in The Independent that he hated the BILs tour of New Zealand was telling. He claimed the reason for this was “the press and negativity” (2), and more recently the comments by Sean O’Brien.

The saying what goes on on tour, stays on tour doesn’t seem to apply to the BILs. Matt Dawson did the same after the 2001 tour of Australia and I doubt if O’Brien’s outburst will be the last.

Coaching the BILs is arguably one of the toughest gigs in world rugby – melding four countries that are usually in combat on the field together, can’t be easy. Even so, I find it completely inappropriate for players to come out and bad-mouth the coaching staff after the tour.

So I can understand that it was a hurtful thing (and not professional in any sense of the word) for Gatland to hear.

Nevertheless, Gatland’s criticism of the Kiwi media intrigues me. Personally, I don’t think he did himself any favours in NZ. I feel pretty safe saying that his post-match media conferences won’t be used for training purposes for new coaches on how to deal with the media.

I find it a bit naive that he could expect no retaliation for the accusations he made to the media about the All Blacks cheating and targeting players.

I found these comments particularly ironic considering his players were doing exactly the same. But in all reality, what did he expect? To come home and say these things, as an ex-All Black himself, and not expect a reaction was a tad delusional.

He accused the New Zealand media for being negative, but used his media-conferences to air excuses and plant seeds prior to games concerning the way the All Blacks play. Does a person who uses the media to assert their own agenda really have a basis to complain when it goes against them?

(Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

As far as the New Zealand media are concerned… at times, certain outlets/reporters are terrible. I have no problem saying that. However, are they really any different to the media of Australia or England or any other country for that matter?

From what I’ve seen, the answer is unequivocally no. Let’s face it, a reporter’s prime objective is to sell the news, and the easiest way to do that is by being controversial.

Unfortunately click-bait journalism is here to stay. Now I don’t expect to read stories written through rose-tinted glasses, and while I’ve learned to expect what I would describe as being biased reports of games etc from overseas media (to me that’s part and parcel of the All Blacks being number one on WR’s Rankings), it’s not something I expect from media based in NZ.

But it happens. Writing contentious, anti-NZ rhetoric obviously works because the journalists involved achieve their objective as shown by amount of comments they receive. But again this isn’t just a kiwi phenomenon. This happens everywhere. It’s quite common for touring teams to receive bad press back in their home nation when results aren’t what is expected.

I didn’t agree with the depiction of Michael Cheika as a clown in the New Zealand Herald. I thought it was nothing more than a childish attempt at distraction before a game. And that annoyed me because I don’t think the All Blacks need the help of the Herald to win matches.

The fact the artist was Australian and it was a response to the portrayal of “Richie McCaw as a witchery grub” in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, is neither here nor there to me. Two wrongs have never made a right. And personally, I’d rather the New Zealand media took the high road rather than join other journalists in the gutter.

The idea was to “needle Cheika a pinch before the match” and that it certainly did. But are these guys 12? The ‘you-did-this-to-us-so-we’re-going to-do-this-to-you’ attitude is better left for the playground.

Unfortunately Gatland received the same clown treatment. However, there were a lot of NZers that didn’t approve of either of these depictions. I certainly didn’t, and I read a lot of comments from like-minded people.

However, I did appreciate Gatland’s wearing of the clown nose in his final BILs post-match media conference. I enjoyed the humour (it reminded me of Marilyn Monroe’s photo shoot in a potato sack after a journalist said she’d look better in a burlap potato sack than the dress she had worn to a party) and I thought it showed a side of Gatland that had been missing in previous conferences.

So how should a post-match press conference look? Well, they shouldn’t be an avenue for excuses. Nor should they be a platform for denial. There should be accountability and humility shown.

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

I like Hansen’s no-nonsense approach to the media. After the second Test loss to the BILs, Hansen gave a lot of credit to the opposition, saying they deserved to win the game. Now skeptics will say he probably didn’t mean it and was just talking the talk. Whether that’s the case or not, it’s what should be done.

He also didn’t make any excuses for the red card incident, saying it’s what the ref decided so it’s no use whining about it. In addition he showed concern for Watson.

After the final BILs Test, Hansen was obviously disappointed with the reversal of the penalty decision: “We all know what happened, and we all know probably what should’ve happened, but at the end of the day, it’s a game and as little kids we’re taught to take the good with the bad and we have to do that… We’re accepting of whatever decisions were made, whether we agree with them or not”.

No harping on of what coulda, shoulda, woulda been. He was obviously as disappointed as I was feeling, but he still had the class to give the BILs credit for their defence and upsetting the All Blacks game plan. He even wished the UK-based media a safe journey home.

I like his pragmatic approach and the fact he doesn’t get enticed into second-guessing refereeing decisions nor about commenting on the opposition. He often tells reporters they should ask the person concerned instead of him. That’s being a professional.

So who do I want to see take over Hansen when he eventually retires… someone who represents New Zealand well in post-match media conferences. Like it or not, media-conferences are as representative of the nation as the match is.

Therefore, I don’t want to see an ABs coach making excuses or disputing refereeing decisions. I want to see Hansen’s style continued. I want the coach to be respectful of the opposition, to be a gracious winner and a good loser. Not to much to ask surely!