RWC: ABs' coaches stay cool under pressure

Pressure was the demon that not only killed the All Black players at the 2007 World Cup, it got to the coaching panel, too. They failed to respond as much as the players did.

Everyone remembers the last 13 interminable minutes of the quarter-final eight years ago - the endless pick and drive that didn't either dent the defence or bring a penalty. Everyone remembers how there was no dropped goal plan; no sense of authority or composure from any of the players.

But just as damaging, more so perhaps, was that the coaching panel then crumbled just as easily when their big moment came.

What they had to do was put the right players on the park that night and, even without the benefit of hindsight, there was no confidence they had got it right.

After three years of an endless rotation policy borne by one specific vow - that the All Blacks would never again play a specialist fullback at centre in a World Cup knockout game - a specialist fullback, Mils Muliaina, was picked at centre in a World Cup knockout game.

Conrad Smith sat in the stands that night, as did Aaron Mauger - a player whose composure, experience and decision-making were always going to be valuable. Doug Howlett, the form wing of the year, was up there with them and most curious of all was the selection of Keith Robinson at lock. Curious because he had just 44 minutes of World Cup football under his belt and was picked not for what he would do that night, but because it was felt that if he didn't make it on to the field, he'd have no chance of being available for the semifinal.

The coaches - Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith - picked the wrong team that night. They hadn't come into the tournament with any strong ideas about their best team and certainly not about their best midfield and wing combinations.

The quarter-final was the biggest game of their tenure to that point and under pressure, they made poor decisions. Six months later, NRL coaching guru Wayne Bennett told them so and Hansen, who has of course graduated to the top job, has stored all the lessons of that doomed campaign.

The biggest one he reckons was the lack of consistency in the team selections during the pool rounds.

"In 2007 I think we had 12 changes between the third and fourth rounds so that's one thing we're not doing," he said. "I don't think we worked hard enough during those weeks."

The extent of who he is talking about in regards to not working hard enough is open to interpretation, but he hints strongly that he includes himself and the other coaches in that assessment.

Hansen has been careful to never be overly critical about the previous regime - partly because he was a significant figure in it. But on the basis he's done things so differently this time around, it's apparent he was either never sold or can see now that the selection approach in 2007 was riddled with holes and ill-conceived ideas.

Eight years on and the team he, assistant coach Ian Foster and Grant Fox have named to play France is not one with contentious decisions. The greatest respect it can be paid is that it is the team virtually every armchair selector in New Zealand would have been expecting - perhaps with the exception of Ben Franks instead of Joe Moody on the bench - if they have been paying only the vaguest attention.

And they would have been expecting it because the core of this time has been embedded for an age. The best combinations have long been found and have had time to be honed and refined.

Under pressure, Hansen and his fellow selectors have held up well this week. That means the All Blacks are already ahead of where they were at the corresponding stage of quarter-final week eight years ago.