MARC HINTON Last updated 08:30 14/08/2011
JASON OXENHAM/Fairfax Media
DRY AS A DEAD DINGO: All Blacks coach Graham Henry is looking to make amends big-time at the 2011 RWC
All Blacks coach Graham Henry opens up to Marc Hinton on the agony of 2007, how it changed him as a coach and why he's better prepared to deliver the holy grail this time around.
Sometimes with the All Blacks coach it's hard to chip past the veneer of the old headmaster who often meets queries of a more reflective nature with a mix of indifference, humour and hubris. And then sometimes you strike gold with Graham Henry and he gives you a peek inside his intriguing mind.
It's fair to say it was the latter Henry who sat down with the Sunday Star-Times in a rare moment of introspection in the leadup to the Rugby World Cup. Yes, he bared some of that old soul of his and the result was a compelling narrative from a coach who may have an unparalleled record in the professional era, but really is just one of us. He hurts, he bleeds, he even sheds a tear or two.
Henry may be close to the most misunderstood man in New Zealand. A lot of people simply don't get his sense of humour. Sometimes it's so dry that if you waved a match in its direction it would burst into flames. Often people mistake his comedy for arrogance. Sure, like us all, he has an ego lurking within, but for the most part this is a fellow who can laugh at himself – and often does.
He's also incredibly busy (he often rises at 4.30am), not the most organised man in the world and now he's reached pensioner status (four grandkids, one more on the way), er, certain facts don't lodge in his mind as well as they might have in his younger days. Whenever you chat with him now you need to be ready to jump in with a name or fact as he negotiates the haze of his recall.
But this is no old fool. Far from it. His mind remains sharp for the stuff that counts. He knows his rugby, and more importantly knows his rugby players. He has a feel for what works and what doesn't work with the modern footballer, honed on having coached 133 test matches.
It's a well of knowledge that no other coach in world rugby can call upon. And it could just be the difference between the All Blacks ending an agonising 24-year wait for Rugby World Cup glory this September and October in our own backyard. Of course Henry has already had one shot at the damn thing, failing abysmally when his All Blacks tumbled out in that Cardiff quarter-final. Most, including Henry himself, presumed that earliest ever RWC exit would be the end of his time with this team.
But in their wisdom the New Zealand Rugby Union – where Henry has some fairly staunch allies – decided to give him another chance. To ignore the claims of people's champion Robbie Deans and for the first time reappoint a failed world cup coach.
That's as good a place as any to start with Henry now. What made him want to stand again? What were his driving forces for an unprecedented second term?
"There's no doubt I wouldn't be sitting here if we'd won the Rugby World Cup in 2007," he says. "The reason I re-stood was because I didn't want to run away. In my position you put a lot of pressure on people to perform, particularly the young people who play. You expect them to show a lot of backbone and do the business.
Ad Feedback
"When we got beaten in the world cup [quarter-final] I could have run away, but I fronted because I thought that was the right thing to do."
You wonder if that took some guts, given the general post-world cup unease.
Henry shrugs off suggestions it was a brave move. Just a necessary one. "I didn't think for a minute I'd get reappointed," he confides. "When I had the interview [wife] Raewyn had come down to Wellington with me and I came back to the hotel after and said `it's all over'. It was a surprise to me."
CARDIFF IS a permanent scar on the Henry psyche. He admits as much as he harks back to that fateful evening in the principality he once ruled like a king.
"It always stays with you, and rightly so. It was massive. The first thing you feel is how to handle this as best you can for the people involved. I think we handled it bloody well. We didn't make any excuses, we took it on the chin and got on with life. That was very important for the young guys involved.
"Obviously it hurt, and still hurts. It was a difficult situation but I'm proud of the way we handled it as a group."
The next question is just how much does that 2007 failure fuel Henry now, especially with potential redemption finally at hand?
He makes one thing clear first: every All Blacks test carries its own pressure. Every one offers the chance to add to a rich legacy. "Winning a Rugby World Cup is not part of our legacy and that hurts. So it's part of your motivation. But every time the All Blacks put on that black jersey it's bloody important. It's not about revenge; it's about doing the business. But those things that happened in the past fuel you."
Like most New Zealand rugby coaches, Henry remembers the defeats more than the wins. So even though he has as incredible 86.2% success rate with the All Blacks (81 of 94 tests), and he's swept the Lions, won three Grand Slams and the Tri Nations five times in seven tilts, it's moments like Cardiff or the Boks sweep of '09 or, even further back, the agonising 1-2 series loss to the Wallabies with the Lions that lodge in the craw. "You remember those times because they hurt and they're very big learning experiences. That's probably natural," he says. Not coincidentally the theme, if you like, of this year's campaign is around learning from the mistakes of the past.
But here's where it gets interesting. Henry wouldn't swap the massive expectation the All Blacks face from their public for anything.
"It's inspirational," he says. "I don't think the All Blacks would be the world's winningest team in any sport, which is correct by a considerable margin, if we didn't have that expectation. So although it adds pressure, it's great pressure. I don't think we as New Zealanders actually appreciate what this team has done. I'm not talking about in my time, I'm talking about over 110 years. It's phenomenal."
HENRY BLAMES the media for this. And he gives me a bit of a glare to reinforce that. Clearly he feels we all take the All Blacks' unrivalled record a bit for granted.
"I don't think the expectation is a negative. It's a real positive. We wouldn't achieve what we do without the public having that expectation."
Henry, with the help of his capable assistants, is succeeding at getting his messages through to the players. They've won 22 of their last 23 tests, for goodness sake. He reckons the key is assembling the right intelligence – "if you've got no information to get across you're wasting your bloody time" – and then applying it sensibly.
He breaks the game-plan down into a two-part equation. Around 75% is constant things such as scrums, lineouts, restarts. Then there's 25% which he calls "the improvement area" and which can make the All Blacks the best in the world.
"That's my job," he explains. "I bring the 25% and the players then throw that out what they don't need and they finish up with 12.5%. That's fine. That's the process.
"The first step is getting the new ideas, the second getting the alignment and the third is making that a viable part of your game. To be viable it has to be simple because when you're running round at 100 miles an hour and making decisions the simpler the better."
Henry relates a funny story at corporate functions. It involves his old skipper Tana Umaga querying him about why he gave team talks close to games. Henry hoped they might be "helpful".
Umaga disabused him of that notion. "I was depressed for a week after that," says the coach with a grin.
So the red-faced, clipboard-thruster in the ads is just a work of fiction? Overplayed, says Henry.
"In the amateur days when there was a bank teller and a farmer and a builder and you brought them together for two training runs and a game the coach's influence was as a button pusher today you're living together for a week, and they get motivated by the environment and the collective challenge to do something special. The old bash on the changing-room walls to do the business is well gone."
That's Henry for you. Old school meets modern times.
MASTER AND COMMANDER
Graham Henry's test coaching recor:
Wales 1998-2002
Played 36 won 22, lost 13, drew 1
Winning percentage 61.1%
British & Irish Lions 2001
Played 3 won 1, lost 2
Winning percentage 33.3%
All Blacks 2004-11
Played 94 won 81, lost 13
Winning percentage 86.2%
Where Henry sits in All Blacks history:
Best coaching records since 1949 (with win ratio)
Fred Allen 1966-68 14 tests, 14 wins 100%
Graham Henry 2004-11 94 tests, 81 wins 86.2%
Alex Wyllie 1988-91 29 tests, 25 wins 86.2%
John Mitchell 2001-03 28 tests, 23 wins, 1 draw 82.1%
Neil McPhail 1961-65 20 tests, 16 wins, 2 draws 80%
Brian Lochore 1985-87 18 tests, 14 wins, 1 draw 77.7%
