Steve Hansen wants an end to the obsession with All Blacks-Wallabies coach rivalries.
Hansen said he grew weary of media highlighting the ultimately one-sided record between his predecessor as New Zealand coach Sir Graham Henry and Australia mentor Robbie Deans between the 2007 and 2011 World Cups.
There was an obvious wince when Hansen was asked about his pending showdown with New Zealander Deans in the first two tests of the Rugby Championship, in Sydney on August 18 and Auckland a week later.
Hansen and Deans were former coaching colleagues at Canterbury and the Crusaders before Hansen left to coach Wales more than a decade ago.
"It's not about Robbie, it's about playing Australia," Hansen said.
"It's a mutual respect. It's certainly not about Robbie Deans and Steve Hansen, we've already done that for five to six years with Robbie Deans and Graham Henry, it's becoming quite boring."
However, Hansen put a spanner in his own plea when he went on to raise Australia's lack of success at the London Olympics. He couldn't resist a dig at the trans-Tasman gold medal score still reading 3-1 in New Zealand's favour.
"Any contest against Australia is one we love. How many gold medals have they got at the moment? So we're beating them at that too.
"It's the same over there, they feel the same way about us as we do them."
Hansen didn't want to delve deeply into Australia's strengths.
He said there was a focus to look inwards during the Rugby Championship and improve on the impressive 3-0 series defeat of Ireland in June.
"This championship is going to let us know exactly where we sit as a team.
"It's not so much about our opponents, this is about how we... raise the bar to the level that we want to be at."
NZN
