Are the New Zealand rugby team trying to understate their place in world rugby?
It's a good move, they seem to be trying to act like we're not the best Which they aren't at the moment..
From what I have seen from the media releases they are trying to be everyday people. A world cup loss in the past would even overshadow the final. This time they have given it to the finalists..
I to have noticed a relaxed fallout from this failed campaign.
My thoughts and speculation on the really relaxed public and media response to the exit;
The simple explanation on why we haven't come down on the team like a ton of bricks this time around has been simply because the core of the team and the coaching staff have won a RWC prior to this and have a 85% wining record. Plus England clearly beat us on the day, there were no contentious refereeing decisions or missed decisions we could complain about (but the fact we were so badly beaten should be far more of a talking point).
It is strange the lack of critical thinking and acceptance of such a comprehensive loss by the public and media alike. (When motivation was raised by a reporter, they actually had their head bitten off and threatened by Hansen). There's been very little critical analysis of the match or why we haven't been firing this cycle. It's really difficult to find decent tactical information about it all in New Zealand, which is strange since it's our national sport. I was hoping for a dissection of our problems from our pundits and what we could do going forward to fix it. Look at Ireland for example, they have a great channel with 'Off the Ball', with all their ex-pro's and coaches giving it a good run down about what's wrong and how to fix it.
Also, this is the danger of having the coaching staff who previously won a tournament and stays in the job until the next World Cup.
Subconsciously or not, they can hide behind their past achievements and not feel so threatened by failure. The driving force/fire and motivation just isn't there.
You see this in Soccer/Football all the time with previous world cup winners. Too often than not the previous coach will remain taking the team and the previous winner will be knocked out at the group stage or very early in the tournament. (France 2002 group stage, Brazil QF's 2006, Italy group stage 2010, Spain group stage 2014, Germany group stage 2018).
It's a matter of simple sports psychology.
There is also the factor of "being found out". Jones said he knew exactly how the AB's were going to play and gave us a good old fashioned schooling in the breakdown which has been an obvious weak point of Hansen tenure recently.
For me Hansen should've moved on after 2015 or after the Lions series, just to keep the approach fresh and motivation fresh.
I really enjoyed 6 years of Hansen's tenure, but it definitely soured for me post Lions series and up until recently when I realized Steve was no longer as motivated by the fear of failure, nor some of the players for that matter.
Both Hansen and Read said in their final interview "it's just a game of footy at the end of the day" - that made me realize these were two guys who were too comfortable in their job at the very end.