John Eales is surprised the NZRU retained its coaching staff after the World Cup. Photo / Greg Bowker
nzherald.co.nz video producer Steve Orsbourn is in Sydney for the test and will be filing regular updates throughout the buildup and over the weekend
Wallaby legend John Eales has waded into the transtasman debate to question the lack of change in the All Black coaching group.
The mild and measured Eales had a little flick at the New Zealand Rugby Union decision for maintaining the same coaching group while he gave thanks
that decision had pushed Robbie Deans into the Wallaby ranks.
There was no question, said Eales, that Graham Henry was still a great coach but he had reservations about why the NZRU would retain the same group after their World Cup disaster.
"I am surprised they did not change something," the World Cup winning lock said yesterday.
He recalled first coming up against Henry in the early 1990s when he was coaching Auckland against Queensland and he was well ahead of the rest of the coaches.
"Look, I think there is no question he is still a great coach, you don't become a bad coach but it would have been playing on people's minds that [World Cup] result.
"It adds more pressure on him than it does on Robbie because it is the old versus the new, people give more leeway to a new team being created than they do to the same group doing the same thing," Eales suggested.
His comments were more tasty fare ahead of tomorrow's main course in Sydney when the All Blacks and Wallabies clash for the first of four Bledisloe Cup tests this year.
That quartet has the potential to be a rugby overdose, but the Henry-Deans subplot will keep it all burbling along for this opening fortnight when the sides play either side of the Tasman.
"They [the All Blacks] are under a very different psychology than we are," said Eales.
The Wallabies were still rebuilding after several false starts under previous regimes. The arrival of the successful Deans and his desire to change some things meant that Wallaby supporters were more prepared to cut him some slack.
Eales implied that Henry would not get the same leeway with the All Blacks. "It is not that people don't want you to win and don't believe that you can win," he said of the Wallabies, "but they forgive you a few errors along the way and the All Blacks are well past that moment.
"So that puts more pressure on them there is no question.
"And the psychology of backing up after you have had a really disappointing result in the World Cup is difficult. It is more difficult than backing up to a big change after you have had a really disappointing result."
The absence of both regular skippers, Stirling Mortlock and Richie McCaw, had added another dimension to the match, which is not yet a sellout, but would probably be redressed next week at Eden Park.
In recent years there had not been many score blowouts but there were usually turning points, like the time Rocky Elsom was sinbinned for something pretty innocuous in Christchurch two years ago.
"There is often a moment that sorts these tests out and some of them are positive and some not so," Eales said.
"The team that gets on top in those moments can get the win."
