All Blacks: Tale of two coaching styles

Steve Hansen backed Keven Mealamu over a recent head-butting incident. Photo / Getty Images

If November has taught us anything new in a rugby sense, it is the field of team dynamics is complex and massively important.

There is no greater contrast than the harmony, whether contrived or not, that exudes from the All Blacks camp and the dysfunction and angst of Wales.

More specifically, you can point to two incidents that were emblematic of their November campaigns: the Keven Mealamu citing and the Ryan Jones sacking.

Mealamu made a mistake and the All Black coaches stood by their man; Jones made a mistake and was thrown under a bus by Warren Gatland.

All Blacks assistant Steve Hansen copped plenty of criticism for his "handling" of the Mealamu affair, some of it justified, some of it based on the gossamer-thin, non-argument of it "being a bad look".

He was clumsy in articulating the defence of Mealamu. Hansen should have acknowledged that Mealamu had erred when he cleaned out England captain Lewis Moody and that their argument was not with the citing, but that it was deemed intentional.

Instead we got a muddled, over-emotive response that suggested Mealamu "would never do that sort of thing", even if the cameras suggested otherwise.

Yesterday, Hansen was still talking about the appeal, a minor victory as Mealamu's suspension was reduced from four weeks to two.

"There's no doubt that on one angle of Kevvie's incident, it looked really bad. We understood why he got cited, but when you look at all the angles we could tell it wasn't what they were describing it as."

Water under the bridge, but in terms of team dynamics it was instructional. Even when Mealamu had come to them and admitted it was a mistake in technique rather than intent, management were within their rights to tell him that it was an argument they were unlikely to win and to move on.

But they didn't. They backed their man.

Compare that to Gatland's reaction when Jones addressed his teammates in the bowels of Millennium Stadium in the aftermath of their 16-16 draw with Fiji. A devastated Jones apologised for the indiscipline that conceded the critical late penalty and took responsibility.

In front of his teammates, Gatland then humiliated Jones by axing him as captain and told the media before the players had time to digest the news.

Emboldened by Gatland's decisive action, assistant coach Rob Howley then went on record as saying the performances of halfback-first five combination Dan Biggar and Richie Rees had been really disappointing.

In Graham Henry's seven-year reign it is easy to recall only two instances when he has publicly chewed players out and neither have occurred in that time of high emotion immediately following a test.

Liam Messam was told he was making the mistakes that lost teams test matches and Isaac Ross was told to get bigger and bolder and to focus on the core roles of being a lock. One has reacted positively to the reproach.

Even in the aftermath of the recent Hong Kong debacle, Henry was measured, refusing to get personal when confronted by individual horror mistakes that saw them lose a test.

All Black players know they can take nothing for granted in terms of selection - just ask Cory Jane.

But at the same time, they know they're not going to be humiliated by the men who hold their fate in their hands.

Welsh players do not feel the same.

Perhaps that's why they called a players-only meeting this week in an attempt to thrash out their problems.

It does not take a genius to figure out that when coaches are not invited to crisis meetings, they've either lost the dressing room or they never found it.

It should be noted that none of this guarantees New Zealand victory at Millennium Stadium on Sunday morning. There have been great teams in the past where contempt for coaches was barely disguised, but it happens less in rugby because the coaches every week have to ask players go out and hurt themselves for their cause.

How many Welshmen do you think are ready to bleed scarlet for Warren Gatland right now?