Smart Choices

ASK STEVE HANSEN WHAT THE FOUNDATION OF A SUCCESSFUL RUGBY SIDE IS AND HE WILL TELL YOU WITH LITTLE HESITATION THAT IT IS GETTING THE SELECTIONS RIGHT.

No selector gets everything right. There will always be the odd player who is deemed to be ready only to be plopped into test rugby and prove to the world that they are not.

There will also be times when good players, proven performers, are picked to play when they shouldn't be: when they are struggling for form and confidence but the selectors didn't want to believe it so picked them anyway.

A perfect record is unachievable but in eight years as head coach, Steve Hansen came close. There were mistakes, but not many. There were misjudgements, but not many and as the time has come now to analyse a career that was so rich with success, there's no going past Hansen's skill as a selector.

It was the foundation of his tenure. He was quite brilliant at it and rarely, if ever, did the All Blacks review a performance between 2012 and 2019 and think that there may have been a significant problem with the personnel they picked.

When they lost or failed to play well, it was almost never the case that selection was fingered as the problem.

Hansen's tenure was almost devoid of selection controversy or failings and there were a number of reasons for that.

In no specific order – he was remarkably astute at knowing when to pick a new player in the squad but more importantly, when to put them in the team.

He so often, almost faultlessly, knew when and how to ease a long-serving All Black out of the team. And he had a sixth sense about when to tinker with the line-up – when to inject someone who he felt was maybe ready to burst into life.

As a final quality, he was aware of public and media scrutiny yet not one to be bullied by it.

It was the first of those gifts – knowing when a new player was ready to be brought into the squad - that he continually got right.