Rugby World Cup 2023: What the Wallabies could have got from Steve Hansen

The claim in Danny Cipriani’s autobiography that Eddie Jones behaved like a “horny teenager” when asking about the player’s sex life is the second Shag-related news controversy to attach itself to the Aussie coach in recent weeks.

In the week leading into their sides’ final Rugby World Cup warm-up matches, it was revealed former All Blacks coach Steve “Shag” Hansen would be helping the Wallabies for a few days.

Here’s what we know about what the Wallabies could have learned from Hansen.

Scoring touch

Hansen would be well-placed to tell Jones about what works on attack against the All Blacks and to give them confidence in their ability to score. In 23 matches against the Hansen-coached All Blacks, the men in canary yellow notched up 437 points, an average of 19 per game – that’s the second-best of any All Blacks opponent of the Hansen years. The Springboks come in at 18.18, the Irish at 16 and dry-powder specialists France are 12.9.

The only team to perform better than Australia? Those wild, free-wheeling runners England averaged an impressive 21.25 points. Reinstalled as Wallaby gaffer, Jones will love the fact he had a hand in those England numbers.

Boost for players

Jones said his players were excited to have Hansen in their camp.

“They like good people coming into camp. They want to get better and they can see the value of Steve,” Jones said. “If you just look at his test record, I think he’s coached 200 tests; for the All Blacks, he won I think 87 per cent.

“So they like good people coming into camp and he’s a good person, so the reaction has been really positive.”

Unsettling the All Blacks

Veteran All Blacks hooker Dane Coles said he was “gobsmacked” by news of Hansen’s involvement with the Wallabies.

But the real fun for Jones would have come in the days that followed as current All Blacks coach Ian Foster told the press he had known about Hansen’s Wallabies plan. The fact the news had not filtered down to a senior player like Coles painted a confused picture of the All Blacks organisation’s internal structures.

Training and leadership

Speaking from France, Jones laid down a clear vision of how Hansen would help. “There’s two main areas: there’s training quality, which is our way of improving, and leadership of the team. So Steve is having a look at both of those areas.”

“Every time he speaks, there is some wisdom in what he says – when he says something, we are listening to him and how we can improve what we are doing. We are looking to see if we can use his advice to do that.”

Training and leadership – the nuts and bolts of top rugby. So, basically, the man rated as one of the greatest All Blacks coaches of all time is helping our arch-rivals with the fundamentals.

“It’s purely like a mate having a beer [asking], ‘What do you think? Where can we improve?’”