Steve Braunias: Secret Diary of The Third Test

It's important to move on from the Second Test. Pictured is All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Steve Hansen

It's only a game. I mean it's not a matter of life and death. I'm a former policeman and I've been in life and death situations, and believe me they don't resemble a Third Test at Eden Park with the series tied at 1-1 and the Lions having the opportunity to win a series for the first time since 1971.

I mean it's pretty obvious what's more important.

Warren Gatland

Well, here we are at the end of the tour, and doesn't time fly when your critics are having fun at your expense? As a Kiwi, you'd like to think you'd come home and things would be a little bit more positive. There's been a bit of a campaign against me personally, the cartoon with the clown's nose was a bit low, but that's water off a duck's back.

Steve Hansen's getting a bit of a taste of that now with one of the press boys writing that he's like Miss World. I've seen Steve close up. He's not Miss World.

Steve Hansen

People say to me, "Steve, what are your hopes and dreams, what do you most want to achieve in life," and hand on heart, my answer is that I want world peace.

Because if you look at what's going on with North Korea this week, and the noises that Donald Trump is making about it, and you throw China and Russia into the mix, then it's possible that the planet is teetering on the edge of nuclear destruction.
If that happened before tonight's game, it'd be a disaster.

Warren Gatland

I think we've played some good rugby on the tour. People expected us to come here and kick the leather out of it, drive every single lineout and try to scrummage people to death. We haven't done that. We've played a good brand of rugby and people have been surprised and almost reluctant to give us credit for that.

Maybe it all comes down to people not moving past the cartoon with the clown's nose, but I've moved on from that and can barely remember that it was on the front page of the Herald and the cartoonist's name was Rod f***king Emmerson.

Steve Hansen

It's important to move on from the Second Test. I mean I can barely remember it.

No problem with Sonny Bill's red card. The red card was a red card, if the ref says it's a red card, then it's a red card. We actually ran a few forensic tests on the red card after the game and it was pretty interesting, because what we discovered is that the colour red is produced by a combination of yellow and magenta. All that rain made the colours run together, and that's probably why the ref produced a red card when what he was reaching for was a magenta card.

You just have to live with it. There's not a lot of sense in replaying it over and over like a traumatic incident, because at the end of the day Sonny didn't use his arms so he put himself at risk, and unfortunately he collected young Anthony's head. You don't want that and the referee deemed it a red card, so off you go boy. Because Sonny didn't use his arms. And that's why he put himself at risk. He collected Anthony's young head, and that was unfortunate. Off you go boy, the ref deemed, because you don't want to see that in rugby, and it's certainly not what you want to see every time you close your eyes and relive the Second Test.

Warren Gatland

Hopefully we'll leave on Saturday having earned the respect of the New Zealand public.

Steve Hansen

Warren doesn't really help himself with comments like that.

But I've got a lot of time for him, and I'm looking forward to having a beer with him after the game, and honking his big fat red clown's nose. PARP!