‘Absolute bull****’ – Former Wallaby slams New Zealand’s reaction to Steve Hansen move

Ex-Wallaby Peter FitzSimons insists that Steve Hansen is a “great rugby man” who doesn’t deserve the criticism he is getting for joining Eddie Jones’ Australia side.

Jones asked the former All Blacks boss to come on board as an advisor, a request that the 2015 Rugby World Cup-winning head coach accepted.

He is spending a few days with the Wallabies ahead of their World Cup warm-up with France on Sunday, passing on a few tips to a side that have suffered four defeats in succession.

‘Traitor’ accusations

It is a move which caught New Zealanders off-guard with some saying that he is a ‘traitor’ for helping out their arch-rivals.

Others are concerned that he will leak some details of the All Blacks set-up ahead of the global tournament, but FitzSimons has rubbished those suggestions.

“I’ll speak honestly for a moment, it’s absolute bull****,” FitzSimons said on The Platform.

“Steve Hansen is a great rugby man… World Rugby needs Australian rugby to be strong and Steve Hansen is not passing over any messages of All Blacks secrets.

“What he’s doing, he’s wandering around and having a bit of a chat – that’s it. There are no meetings at midnight.

“He was talking to me about the virtues of culture, of a culture where you know each other, you like each other, old school rugby values, and the All Blacks have been terrific on that kind of stuff.”

FitzSimons was at Wallabies training earlier in the week and spoke to Hansen, who the ex-lock insisted did not seem overly concerned with the furore his new role has caused.

“We were at this pristine (training base) with two beautiful rugby fields. They start training, I see Steve Hansen and he did mention in passing that there was some controversy in New Zealand,” the former Australian international said.

“I must say he wasn’t fussed about it and I’m not too fussed about it.”

’Technical gibberish’

The ex-Wallaby also stated that much of his conversation with Hansen went over his head as they discussed what the team was doing in training.

He added: “Steve was explaining to me what was going on. As the Wallabies were training, there were two drones in the air with two guys at the end of the field observing on screens, and I said: ‘what the hell are they doing?’

“Steve said: ‘something, something, something, alignment, something something.’ I said: ‘Does that help?’ And he said: ‘something, something. Yes.’ He was speaking in technical gibberish that I’ve got no understanding of.”

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