Steve Hansen is known for his wry sense of humour.
So it was no surprise when the All Blacks head coach took an apparent cheeky swipe at US President Donald Trump during a press conference in Japan.
Speaking to media yesterday, Hansen backed World Rugby's decision to cancel the All Blacks final pool game against Italy due to Super Typhoon Hagibis.
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"Is it frustrating? Of course it is. But the reality is that we can't control the weather," he said.
"The inconvenient fact then is it comes down to 'what do we do here?'. Do we charge on and put people's lives at risk? Or do we lead and make a decision that's around making sure people are safe? As I said, It's a no-brainer."
Suddenly smiling to himself, Hansen paused and said: "I won't say what I was about to say, but a man from America could have even made this decision."
Last month, Trump was criticised for displaying a modified National Hurricane Centre "Cone of Uncertainty" forecast, indicating Alabama would be in the path.
The graphic appeared to have been altered with a marker to indicate a risk that the storm would move into Alabama from Florida.
It is not clear whether Trump was responsible for altering the forecast chart, but when asked whether the chart had been drawn on, Trump said: "I don't know, I don't know."
Meanwhile, Typhoon Hagibis has forced World Cup organisers to cancel England's pool game against France and they may yet have to do likewise for Japan's final group game with Scotland which will determine who the All Blacks face in their quarter-final.
This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.
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BB can’t pass? Right…
Go to commentsEven the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.
IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.
Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.
They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.
Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.
This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.
I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉
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