NZ Support Coaching staff

Well there were no surprises when Hansen got the nod for coach. There were a few eyebrows raised with his choices for his support coaching staff: Aussie Maclean working the defence and Ian Foster with the backs.

From the 4 tests this year, the forwards seem quite sharp. The backs have looked slick in a couple of tests and pretty average in a couple. The one redeeming feature about last weekend's game was the set piece efficiency. The Dagg try came from a beautifully constructed move from a scrum with Carter and SBW as a decoy runner bamboozling the Wallaby defence. The Jane try came from another scrum with just speed of hand and good use of width. The AB defence has looked pretty solid as well.

There are certainly areas to work on but I think so far the coaching staff have acquitted themselves well. Plenty of rugby left to come this year but the signs look encouraging. Pressure always is relieved when you're winning. A few posters said Hansen might not respond well to losing. So far we haven't seen that side of him.

What do you think of the coaching set up so far?

They got the susbtitutions wrong on the weekend. Frankly though I'm not a fan of changing Smith for Weepu just for the sake of changing him. Genia doesn't get subbed each match. It seems they try to justify Weepu's presence by getting him to do something more than doing the haka.

I think they're doing things fine. It would be extremely easy to replicate the workings of the previous regime and Hansen was as central to that as you could ever be.

What he has done well is to be able to change the coaching structure and introduce another generation of players without really missing a step. We've got bigger tests ahead v SA but at the moment you couldn't really fault the overall operation.

Agree re substitutions. Not sure what Weepu's purpose was. Thought it was nice to see Ben Franks come on and destroy Australia with that tighthead resulting in a penalty, he usually comes on and our scrum goes down a bit.

Maybe they didn't make changes because aside from Cruden it was a pretty average bench. It was good to see Ben Franks do well as he was poor against Ireland. I read if Woodcock can't play they'll go for specialist cover in Crockett (seems to have the edge over Faumiana. Sorry bro, don't know you well enough to spell your name yet!) and keep Ben on the bench because of his versatility.

Cooper rumoured to come back and Barnes to go at 12 and AAC to fullback and Mitchell to wing. That'll do wonders for continuity. Beale might take some time to recover from that nightmare. Poor bloke as he's obviously not back to his best and still expected to work miracles.

It'll be also interesting how the wise men approach the Argentina series. That's a perfect time to introduce Cruden for me who is more likely to open up gaps in a very solid Argentinian defence. The forwards shouldn't be messed around with too much but some experimentation in the backs could be used without getting too carried away.