With the hours counting down to a game being talked up as the biggest since the 2015 World Cup final, camps from both sides have been fulfilling their media obligations. What has been striking is the differing demeanour of the two coaches. In the All Black corner, Steve Hansen, as you’d expect, has worn the frown of a man who said losing ‘sucks’, but he appears, outwardly, to have taken the loss in his stride, and cut a relaxed air at the Heritage hotel, swatting away assertions that he was under pressure. “I’m feeling pretty good. You’d think we’ve never lost from reading the stories, it’s like the sky is falling in,” he said with a wry smile. He then put a narrow three-point victory into perspective. “Life tells us we’re only playing a game of rugby. Real pressure is when you’ve got to spend half an hour giving someone CPR to save their life and if that doesn’t work breaking the news to their children, mother, father or extended family. If we win, lose or draw, we’ll be a better team for it.” A ten-minute walk away, at the Pullman hotel, Warren Gatland didn’t seem at ease. He was terse and defensive with the assembled media early on, with a series of one-word answers, quipping that after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, he may retire to an isolated beach and put his feet up. Despite public protestations to the contrary, the Hamilton-native is not doing a great job of hiding his emotions, in a period where he has come under sustained criticism in a country in which he has so much pride. No one is buy that the opprobrium is ‘water off a duck’s back’. Back at the All Blacks presser, across town, a rapt audience listened to Hansen disclosing that the Barrett brothers had their own nicknames for each other, of which one, Lloyd, was from the comedy Dumb and Dumber. He went on to say the All Blacks were a brotherhood but that his players would have to be pretty sharp to catch him out, to chuckles all around. Questioned on whether Jordie Barrett and Ngani Laumape presented a risk, Hansen shrugged his shoulders, and straight-batted the fact the two players have barely 80 minutes Test rugby between them. “Jordie is very good aerially. He played well enough for the Hurricanes against the Lions and we have confidence in him. We wouldn’t have put him there if we didn’t believe in him. We think Ngani’s all-round game is slightly better than Mala’s (Malakai Fekitoa). We were going to go with SBW (Sonny Bill Williams) and Crott’s (Ryan Crotty) but we don’t have them. We’ve had to push Ngani quicker than we’d hoped but he’ll do a job for us.” Back at the Pullman, Gatland was defending, quite rightly, his decision to take the squad to Queenstown to unwind. “We could have flown to Auckland but we had the opportunity to go to Queenstown. Why not use that? … Continue reading A tale of two coaches: How Warren Gatland and Steve Hansen are coping with pressure