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Steve Hansen: 'One of the great learnings I got was with Razor'

Former All Blacks head coach Sir Steve Hansen and former Crusaders head coach Scott Robertson. (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

Before he was challenging players as a coach, Scott Robertson was challenging coaches as a player. Perhaps unwittingly, a young Razor once sparked a moment that Sir Steve Hansen now labels one of his “great learnings”.

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A coach with both Canterbury and the Crusaders from 1996 until 2001, Hansen’s coaching debut in red and black aligned with Robertson’s rookie season. Hansen, along with Sir Wayne Smith and later Robbie Deans, introduced the young back-rower to the world of professional rugby.

As it would turn out, Robertson would also introduce the soon-to-be All Blacks assistant to a new approach to communicating with players.

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“One of the great learnings I got was with Razor actually,” Hansen told the Canterbury Rugby Coaches Corner podcast.

“Razor, as a player – great player – but he would get out there and it was like a little kid when they get up in the morning, they’re charging and they’re banging into everything and because of that, making mistakes.

“Razor would do that when he was playing so I would say to him ‘Look Razor, just 95 miles an hour when you first get out there and let’s ease our way into the game.’

“One day he said to me ‘I wish you’d stop saying that, because I find it negative.’ And I go ‘oh, sh*t.’

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“He said ‘I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I knew shouldn’t have.’

“I said ‘No, I’m not angry because you told me, I’m angry because you’ve waited six games to tell me. I’m trying to get you to be better, I’m not trying to put things in your head that are going to make you feel worse.’

“So, from that, I learnt the phrase when you say something and it might be a little edgy, it might be a little negative, or it might even be positive, follow it up with something like ‘What did you hear me say?’

“They might say ‘Well I heard you say I played bad’. ‘No, that’s not what I was saying. What I’m saying is today probably wasn’t one of your best games that I’ve seen you play, you still played pretty good, but here’s a couple of things that I think were missing today. Now what did you hear me say?’

“You force each other to have a conversation that’s a bit deeper than just superficial.”

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Beyond Hansen’s reflection on the interaction, the conversation may well have helped shape Robertson’s understanding of communication between players and coaches, as Razor has often noted he aims to coach how he would have liked to be coached during his playing days.

While Hansen backed up Ian Foster’s adverse reaction to Robertson’s early appointment ahead of the Rugby World Cup in France, he has since joined the chorus of endorsements for the serial Super Rugby champion.

Also expressing his anticipation for the next era of All Blacks rugby is Wallabies icon Stirling Mortlock, who this week called Robertson’s appointment “scary”.

“Yeah that’s… that’s not very nice,” a grinning Mortlock told 1News.

“Razor, I played against him, he was a legend of a player and a great guy and you can just see any team he coaches he gets it. All his people love him.

“You can tell he’s a great man manager. I think it’s pretty scary that he’s going to be the coach now, because there’s a lot to like about how he goes about his business and what outcomes and outputs he gets.”

“I’ll be an interested bystander but I’m assuming its going be great outcomes for the All Blacks for the next period of time.”

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Comments

5 Comments
A
Ardy 323 days ago

I am expecting the AB’s to lift again as their rugby IQ has always been high but Razor strikes me, to be at a different level. Hope all these expectations just up his ego and he makes a huge stuff up and we get to win the Bledisloe in my lifetime - fat chance!

P
Paul 325 days ago

The legend that is Stirling Mortlock put into words that I have been feeling ever since Razor has been appointed: “ o crap”
Common Rassie, we trust in you…. At least you now have some REAL competition. Only going to make you better.
You just have to love the game of rugby.

J
JJGhost 326 days ago

As lessons go, that is a great one!

m
mjp89 326 days ago

Lessons*

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Flankly 49 minutes ago
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Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


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Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 58 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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