Coles and Hansen best mates again

All Blacks hooker Dane Coles and his former coach Steve Hansen are again on the best of terms after a chat at the team base in Lyon this week.

Coles' reaction to news Hansen was spending time with the Wallabies for a few days ahead of the Rugby World Cup was one of surprise and disappointment.

But Coles said, "He gave me a bit of stick for causing a bit of a scene, but no, it's good. It's funny what can change in the past couple of weeks. He got up and had a bit of a yarn and all that. The little bit of hard feelings has been put to bed.

"We had a bit of a hug. I won't say what he said to me. It was a bit of good humour. He's got a lot of respect in this environment [and] he was helping out a mate, once we got a bit of context to it.

"He's got a lot of good, deep connections with a lot of players that he's coached before. You've seen that when he sees players for the first time, the smiles and the banter. It's lifted the spirits."

As a long-time member of the front-row club, Coles is looking for a solid result when they play Namibia in Toulouse on Saturday morning (NZT).

The scrum was an area in which they would seek improvement.

"As a forward, the set piece stuff is always massive for us. We got a bit of a touch-up against France, so I think the scrum is very important.

"Success is having a solid scrum. If we can improve that against Namibit that would be awesome."

Coles also favoured having the ball in play for more minutes in games because that favoured the All Blacks' strengths.

"We've just got to be smarter and try to keep the ball and make it count, and give the work rate off the ball to make sure we can play footy and have a crack."

All Blacks v Namibia: Saturday 16 September, 7am NZT (Friday 15 September, 9pm CEST). Live on Sky Sport.

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