Hansen
Steve Hansen is a legendary All Blacks coach who is one of the finest coaching minds in the game. Discover more with RugbyPass, your resident rugby gurus.
Steve Hansen Bio
The former coach of Wales and the All Blacks, Steve Hansen is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in world rugby. Throughout his distinguished career, he won almost every major tournament in the Southern Hemisphere, including the Rugby World Cup and The Rugby Championship. He was also voted as the World Rugby Coach of the Year four times.
Born 7 May 1959, Steve Hansen represented Canterbury at centre on 21 occasions. However, at the conclusion of his playing career, he quickly turned his attention to coaching.
In 1996, Steve Hansen began his coaching career with Canterbury. From then until 2001, he led the side to two National Provincial Championships. During this period (1999-2001), he also worked as an assistant for the Canterbury Crusaders.
In 2002, Steve Hansen left New Zealand and became the head coach of the Wales national team. However, although the side usually performed well under his stewardship, they often lost games. In fact, in 2003, they lost every game in the Six Nations Championship for the first time in their history. Despite a strong showing at the 2003 Rugby World Cup, Steve Hansen did not seek to renew his contract when it expired in 2004 and he returned to New Zealand as an assistant.
Steve Hansen then stayed as an assistant until 2011, when he was unveiled as the new head coach of the national side. Under his stewardship, the side were almost unbeatable at times. They were only defeated once in 2012 and they went the entire year unbeaten in 2013. Unsurprisingly, the side went into the 2015 Rugby World Cup as heavy favourites, and they won the tournament. During the 2012-2016 period, Steve Hansen was named the World Rugby Coach of the year four times. The only year he didn’t claim the honour was 2015, when the side won the World Cup.
The success continued for Steve Hansen in the following years, although the side only drew with the British and Irish Lions in 2017 and they finished third in The Rugby Championship in 2019. At the conclusion of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, when the All Blacks were defeated by England in the semi-finals, Steve Hansen stepped down.
Since stepping down from his role with the international side, Steve Hansen has taken several domestic roles. He currently works as a mentor for Toyota Verblitz in Japan and works as a high performance consultant for the NRL’s Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.
