Henry sees balance in Williams gong
New Zealand coach Graham Henry reckons Richie McCaw is the best player in the world, but that Shane Williams deserved his award for his performance in his position.
New Zealand coach Graham Henry reckons Richie McCaw is the best player in the world, but that Shane Williams deserved his award for his performance in his position.
As a part of a minor war of words that has broken out in the aftermath of the All Blacks' 29-9 win in Wales, and covering an issue that has been on many minds since Williams was rewarded for a record-breaking year, Henry said that McCaw and Dan Carter had more influence as a result of their position on the pitch rather than purely because of their excellence.
“I think Richie is the best player in the world,” Henry told the New Zealand Herald.
“Shane's a finisher – he has scored some magnificent tries over the last year. He is a quality athlete with some great skills.
“He's a pretty special player, but not as influential as a Richie or a Daniel because he is not in those positions – seven and ten are very influential on how the team plays.
“Richie has captained the side outstandingly this year and I think he captained very well over the last two years.”
The other contretemps has been over the accusations that the Welsh spent part of the second half of the match time-wasting by feigning injury, as they tried to regroup in th eface of an All Black onslaught.
“I don't know how many injury breaks there were, but they were each Welsh ones,” Henry claimed.
“I think they bought some time to have a recovery. It was part of the game plan, to make sure that when they are a bit stuffed they have some time out to recover.”
But Wales coach Warren Gatland hit back at those claims, insisting it was New Zealand who actually used those spoiling tactics on Saturday.
“I can assure you it was definitely no tactic of ours to feign injuries or slow the game down,” retorted Gatland.
“At this level you can't afford to do that. One of our things is we wanted the ball in play.
“Our view was it was Richie McCaw slowing the game down. You could see he was, on a number of occasions, by how he was waving his arms, being quite content to slow it down.
“We had a couple of players struggling with cramp, Ian Evans had a knee injury and it was pretty visible to see what happened with Martyn Williams.”
Lock forward Evans will miss the rest of the season after being carried off with cruciate ligament damage, while openside flanker Williams was sporting a black eye following an early clash of heads with team-mate Gethin Jenkins.