Nick Cain: Hansen’s barbs hide All Blacks’ insecurity

Steve Hansen didn't hang around when it came to giving the 2017 the voodoo doll treatment. No sooner had the Lions squad been announced than Hansen was sticking the pins in, starting the well-worn Kiwi process of trying to get under the skin of his opposite number, .
While the Lions head coach was making mollifying noises about the Lions swapping songs at the Treaty Ground Maori marae at Waitangi, and watching Kiwi films like Whale Rider in an attempt to absorb some Kiwi culture and get onside with the public, Hansen was having none of it. Instead, he was straight into the mind games – and pretty bog standard ones at that.
In a thinly veiled scattergun attack he had a go at Gatland for relying too much on the Irish, leaving out , and being a limited coach who relied on a basic bang-crash game dependent on midfield bangers called “Warrenball”.
Hansen said that Gatland was “clutching at straws” if he was hoping that the All Black loss in Chicago to the men in green would somehow carry-over to the Lions in this summer's three-Test showdown. He said: “It's not about picking teams who beat us in Chicago… You pick players who can do the job you want them to do, who play the style of game you want to play.”
The New Zealand coach sounded like an arch curmudgeon as he added in reference to the squaring the series a week later in Dublin: “I'm pretty happy that our guys got some confidence beating in Ireland.”
The Rotorua-born Hartley was next up on Hansen's hit-list of Gatland's supposed failings in squad selection. Hansen said of the captain's omission: “I think he would have been an asset, but I'm not picking the team. The guy that has the last say is the guy that's usually coaching them.”
However, he saved most of his scorn for the limitations of the Warrenball game plan that he says Gatland follows slavishly. “He likes his big ball-carriers in the middle of the park, and his big grunty forwards, so that's what he's picked. And I'd expect that we are going to get a similar game style to what we've always got whenever we've played a Warren Gatland team.”
He continued: “I've never seen him do anything else other than that. I guess we need to be prepared for what we normally get… He's done most of his coaching up North, and has got a particular style which works for him up there. It tells you what his mindset is, how he wants to play, if he shoves Ben Te'o to No. 12. You will see Ben carrying strong up the middle à la Jamie Roberts for years for .”
Hansen is usually a bit smarter than this. What this early salvo betrays is how deeply concerned the All Black coach is about the strength of the Lions squad soon to embark for New Zealand – and about the capacity of Gatland to shape it very quickly into a Test team that will pose a serious threat to the double world champions.
Hansen's attempt to undermine Gatland at such an early stage in the proceedings suggests that this will merely be the preamble to a series which could be bitterly contested in every sense. However, when I suggested to Gatland at the Lions launch this week that he would soon be cast in New Zealand as public enemy No.1, he said that he was not convinced that would happen.
“I don't think so,” he said. “I am a proud Kiwi, and very passionate about where I come from – although there is no-one who is going to be more committed or want to beat the All Blacks more than myself.”
The Lions head coach went on to say that the local Press had already had a pop at him by drawing him as a cartoon clown after he took umbrage when they gave the Australian head coach, Michael Cheika, the same treatment before him.
Gatland jokes that he was fed up that the caricature depicted him a miserable clown rather than a happy one. However, my hunch is that this is just the start of the attempt to undermine the coach who is central to the Lions being successful in New Zealand.
There is no doubt that Gatland is not someone who will be easily intimidated or put upon. However, when he admitted that the furore over his decision to drop Brian O'Driscoll for the third Test of the series four years ago spoilt the series victory for him, he revealed a sensitivity that – with so much at stake – some of his fellow countrymen might feel inclined to target.
The evidence so far is that Hansen is one of them.

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