Controversial Springboks coach Peter de Villiers has found an unlikely ally in All Blacks assistant Steve Hansen.

South Africa were well beaten by Australia in the Tri-Nations opener after de Villiers decided to leave most of his top players at home and a woefully understrength Springboks side will also run out against New Zealand in Wellington on Saturday.

With all eyes on the World Cup in September and October, the All Blacks have taken a more measured approach to player management, with forwards Kieran Read, Keven Mealamu, Brad Thorn and Owen Franks rested again this week after heavy Super Rugby workloads.

It makes a mockery of an All Blacks-Springboks Test, traditionally the most fiercely contested match-up in world rugby, but forwards coach Hansen refused to criticise de Villiers.

“No, I think South Africa have done what’s right for their team,” Hansen said today.

“The most important tournament of the year is the Rugby World Cup and every rugby nation is looking at that as the case. So they’ve looked at their team and they’ve obviously got a lot of injuries or guys that are niggly, guys that are tired, just like our guys and they’ve decided they’ll throw the Tri-Nations opportunity to win the game.

“They can sit at home, where I imagine they’ll play their top sides, which will prepare them well for the World Cup.

If you win the World Cup and don’t win the Tri-Nations, regardless of what country does it, who cares? If we won the World Cup and didn’t win the Tri-Nations, do you think people will be complaining about the Tri-Nations? I can’t see too many and it will be the same in South Africa, same in Australia.”

The 21 ”injured” Springboks are at a training camp in South Africa, and without their stars were completely outplayed by the Wallabies in Sydney.

Apart from the four rested players, New Zealand are expected to name a near full strength side tomorrow but Hansen warned against completely writing off South Africa.

“I think a lot of them were pretty new or very inexperienced players so they would have got very good learnings out of that game. They’re good players and they can play a lot better than they did in that test but maybe that was Australia that made them look poor”, he said.

“I think you’ll see a different beast… I think we should be expecting a vastly improved Springbok side. Two reasons, one they’ve been beaten and they’ll be hurting and the second reason is they’ve had that game under their belts.”

Meanwhile, Hansen said skipper Richie McCaw would start at openside flanker despite training at the back of the scrum at times this week.

Hansen said McCaw, 30, was still seen as a specialist opensider but without the services of Read, the coaching staff needed to cover their bases.

“He’ll be wearing the No 7 jersey and he will be the openside flanker. He’s the best No 7 in the world so I’m hoping his long term future is at No 7. We need to have flexibility in the loose forwards and at the moment the flexibility of him being able to go to 8 allows us to give Reado the time out of the environment that he needs. So I wouldn’t read too much into it, there’s no big plans to turn Richie McCaw into a No 8 other than when we need him to play there as a back-up player.”

The Dominion Post