Current All Blacks 'something special'

Anton Oliver during a media session in Auckland, before the All Blacks head away on their Grand Slam tour. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Welsh centre Gavin Henson's tell-all book about his rugby tour with the Lions has yet to pass through All Blacks hooker Anton Oliver's hands.

So he hasn't read Henson's attacks on coach Sir Clive Woodward and his teammates on a tour of New Zealand that saw the Lions humbled 3-0 in the test series in June and July.

But Oliver, whose own biography released this month hit out at former coaches and an All Blacks drinking culture earlier in his test career, backed Henson on a general principle.

"He's got a right to say what he thinks," he said.

"Good on him for saying that."

So it's little surprise that the issue of having a greater say in things comes up when Oliver talks about what makes the present All Blacks environment "something quite special".

"It's that much maligned word, empowerment," he said.

"It's got a lot of negative connotations about it -- player power and all that."

But what the present set-up under coach Graham Henry and assistants Steve Hanson and Wayne Smith had worked on over the past two seasons was increasing the leadership base in the squad.

"It's not just hanging it on the All Blacks coach and captain, which was the old model," Oliver said.

"That's all been spread to 12 to 15 guys, which is almost the starting 15, and that's the key difference."

Oliver said Henry was "still the boss", but the hierarchical structure had gone.

"That idea of inclusiveness is the difference," he said.

"The players are not just pieces on a chess board. Steve Hansen could drop me, but I could have a beer with him straightaway. I know it's nothing personal."

Oliver's selection for the Grand Slam tour of Britain and Ireland completed his return from a leg injury that scuppered his hopes of playing against the Lions and in the Tri-Nations.

A veteran of 43 tests, 10 as skipper, he gained his last cap in the All Blacks' superb victory over France in Paris last November.

He admitted it had been "a very strange year" for him since.

He had started out thinking he would try to get into the All Blacks squad against Lions and then maybe call it a day.

But the Highlanders' good start to the Super 12, when they won six successive games, got him enjoying his rugby again.

Then Henry told Oliver that he saw him as part of the All Blacks' plans through to the 2007 World Cup.

"So that really opened the floodgates for me," he said.

"I took the blinkers off."

Then came his injury. During his long spell on the sidelines, he was invited to stay around the All Blacks camp.

His impression of the tests against the Lions was that the scoreline did not reflect the pressure that the home side were under.

"In hindsight, the Lions series was far more a mental test than a physical test," he said.

"The pressure that the New Zealand public put on this team to win was astronomical."

There would also be pressure to bring home a Grand Slam of victories over Wales, Ireland, England and Scotland, but touring was different.

"You're in your own little cocoon," Oliver said.

"I love it, because you're an isolated band of brothers."

At 30, Oliver is the second oldest in the 35-strong squad behind skipper Tana Umaga, 32.

His inclusion was of little surprise as he and incumbent Keven Mealamu were seen as shoo-ins for two of the three hooking spots.

He said he was at the stage of his career where he would accept whatever game time was considered best for the team.

"When you're first in the All Blacks, you're just happy to be there," he said.

"Then you get your spot and you want to defend it. Now that I've had it, lost it, had it, lost it, clearly it's not mine. It's an ephemeral thing. Now it's what's best for the team."

- NZPA