Sir Steve Hansen: All Blacks ‘in a position to win it’ but must ‘get desperate’ against Springboks in Cape Town
Sir Steve Hansen: All Blacks 'in a position to win it' but must 'get desperate' against Springboks
World Cup-winning head coach Sir Steve Hansen says the All Blacks need to “get desperate” as they attempt to defeat the Springboks for the second week in a row.
Hansen’s former side defeated their old rivals 33-16 at Ellis Park in Johannesburg last Saturday in a thrilling opener to the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
The result came as quite the shock to many Springboks fans, who expected their double-World Cup-winning side to put the tourists to the sword.
“Rassie [Erasmus] will be pretty disappointed with the result from the weekend,” Hansen told the Shaun O’Neill Podcast. “They played enough rugby to win the game, but they got beaten quite convincingly, so that’ll be worrying them, why that didn’t happen.”
Erasmus has named a much-changed side to face the All Blacks this coming Saturday in Cape Town, in a desperate attempt to regain control of the series. In fact, if the All Blacks win this match, then the Springboks can only draw the series at best.
According to Hansen, if the All Blacks are to remain in charge, they will need to match the hosts’ energy.
“They’ve got to get desperate too,” claimed Hansen. “They’ve got to reset. This week’s really important to start again. Have the same desperation that they had the week before, if not more, because they know South Africa are going to come out and be really desperate. And a week’s a long time in Test rugby.
“You’ve only got to have a 5% shift in mental attitude, and the other team have 5%, so that’s a 10% shift, and it’s a big margin.”
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Erasmus’ changes include double World Cup winner Handre Pollard returning to the fold, replacing young fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who struggled in the series opener.
“You can’t beat experience if it’s in form, and a lot of those players are in form,” said Hansen. “So Pollard coming back into 10 sort of gives an indication there’ll be more of a kicking game.
“He’s not really the runner that the other two five-eighths they have in their squad are. So he’s going to kick a lot. He’s a goal kicker, so that probably indicates they’re just going to take on the scoreboard pressure and try and build, rather than try and do what they did last time and go for lineouts and in the corner or scrums out in front of the post. So they’ll take the three points that are on offer.
“And he’s strengthened his bench with the players that he’s got there, so he’s looking to have more impact off the bench.”
Hansen was questioned on Erasmus’ state of mind after the opening round, but insisted that as a top coach, Erasmus would remain calm.
“Great leadership is when you’re flexible in your thinking, but you’re consistent at the same time, and so you’re the same person you are whether things are going good or going bad. You’re level. You’re calm,” he explained.
“You’re flexible enough in your thinking to hear other people’s ideas, because you don’t have to have all the ideas, but you do have to have the ability to listen and learn and lead people through that pressure-cooker stage.
“People look to you to see if you’re calm, and if you’re calm, then they’ll stay calm. And we find solutions rather than talking about the problems.”
“We’ve got a chance of winning it”
The All Blacks had won just one match in their last six against the Springboks before their opening round victory on Saturday. But now, having won two out of their last three, confidence levels will have risen.
“They’re definitely in a position to win it,” enthused Hansen. “They’ll take a lot of belief out of it, and the more you play a team, the more you learn about them. So they would have learned a lot about them.
“However, South Africa will be a different beast. I’m sure of that. So it’s about getting our reset right and our mental attitude right from Monday to Friday, so we can reproduce high-level performance on Saturday.
“If we can do that, then we’ve got a chance of winning it.”
Sir Steve Hansen was speaking on The Shaun O’Neill Podcast. Hansen is available for ambassador roles and speaking engagements through New Zealand speakers bureau Essential Talent, essentialtalent.co.nz.
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