Holistic help for Wales as Hansen arrives

A hardened Kiwi comes to Cardiff from Canterbury to try to shape the future. Hugh Godwin explains

A New Zealander arriving in Wales with a glittering CV of coaching provincial and Super 12 champions in his homeland. A hard man steeped in rugby who gave up the chance of guiding the sainted All Blacks for a lucrative contract turning round the tainted Welsh. For Graham Henry in 1998, read his new assistant coach for the next World Cup and beyond, Steve Hansen. Ladies and Gentlemen, after the Great Redeemer, get ready for Redeemer II – the Kiwi Second Coming.

In fact, the Welsh Rugby Union will almost certainly avoid the temptation of dragging Hansen atop the Brecon Beacons for an advertising shoot of the kind which saddled Henry with his now famous monicker. Apart from other considerations – not least that Henry is enduring a crisis of confidence in his fourth season as Wales coach – Hansen simply does not seem the type. A former policeman and centre for Canterbury – the province with a "tough-guy birthright", as a New Zealander once wrote – Hansen pounded the unusual beat of switching to coaching forwards in 1997, with ex-All Black full-back Robbie Deans taking the backs. Together, they won the provincial championship (NPC) in their first year, then took Canterbury's Super 12 franchise, the Crusaders, from bottom place to a "three-peat" of titles in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Not even Henry, at Auckland, managed that. Another NPC title last month was Hansen's victorious valedictory before taking up his new role, which runs to the 2004 Six Nations and is reputedly worth £150,000 a year.

A back he may have been, but Hansen, 42, is a burly, square-jawed customer, who signed off his playing career captaining an unbeaten New Zealand Combined Services tour through England in 1992. He has spent the last couple of weeks in Wales, long enough to witness a defeat by Argentina and a win over Tonga. Some Welsh players have hinted that, after only a few, unofficial training sessions with Hansen – his contract starts in January – their forward play has been both simplified and improved. Further evidence will be presented in today's Millennium Stadium match against Australia.

Hansen's Canterbury tale should resonate in Wales, where the WRU are in the throes of a long-overdue structural reappraisal. "When we started off, Canterbury were a team with no respect at all; they'd finished bottom of the Super 12 table in 1996. We built a team that last week provided the All Blacks with seven Test forwards and a few more in the backs. Obviously we'd worked hard as a coaching team, but also as a union. Good sporting sides have good coaches, good administrators and good development programmes. We worked at the basics of the game, on performing them under pressure, but also on the players' thought processes. It was a holistic approach."

As long as the Welsh squad don't think a holistic approach is a treatment for a runny nose, Hansen's appointment in succession to Lynn Howells should boost a team at a low ebb after heavy home defeats this year by England, Ireland and Argen-tina. Some short Welsh memories appear to have misplaced Henry's wins over South Africa (Wales's first), France in Paris (twice), and England at Wembley.

Hansen says that linking up with Henry was a major factor in him giving the nod to the WRU back in May, and sticking to his word even when the All Black job unexpectedly came available. But he has noticed a change in his old Auckland adversary. "There's no question over his [Henry's] self-discipline or his desire," Hansen said. "He works harder than anyone else I know in the game. At this moment, we've got to work a bit on his self-belief. He's had a tough time, everybody's got their opinion, and it's easy to shoot the coach. Probably the worst part of it is when it starts affecting your family. But as far as I'm concerned, the guy [Henry] is a good coach and I am looking forward to working with him."

A week ago, Hansen watched on TV at the Millennium Stadium as an All Black team containing 11 Canterbury players beat Ireland 40-29 in Dublin. The two locks, Chris Jack and Norm Maxwell, had clearly responded to Hansen's wrath during the NPC campaign, when they were dropped and dispatched to the gym.

"I felt quite proud," Hansen said. "I saw a lot of young guys achieving what they wanted to, having worked hard to do it. The All Blacks were playing a similar style to the one we'd been using at Canterbury."

Having left behind the likes of Andrew Mehrtens and Reuben Thorne, brought through by Hansen when he began coaching at High School Old Boys in 1993, what are his initial impressions of a Wales squad facing the not-unfamiliar charges of lacking fitness and application? "There are a lot of things we can improve, no doubt about it. We have to be honest with ourselves, and the players have got to make decisions on whether they really can reach a higher standard, and improve the way they're playing. Wales have got good players but we need more of them. It won't happen overnight."

Hansen will return home on Wednesday to be with his wife Jill, who is expecting their fourth child. In the new year, the hard work really begins. But don't mention redeeming.