Simon Lewis

FORMER New Zealand captain Anton Oliver proved an engaging interviewee earlier this week, and the article featured in Saturday's Irish Examiner showed he is far from the stereotypical image of the grunting front row forward.

The now-retired hooker skippered the All Blacks to victory over Ireland at Lansdowne Road in 2001 and he'll be back in Dublin this evening to watch the current teams collide at the Aviva Stadium before participating in the Guinness Area 22 supporters' event at the Gasworks Pub.

Here's some more insights from the man who turned his back on rugby two years ago aged 33 in search personal development and a Masters degree at Oxford University.

Oliver believes the current generation of players are in danger of becoming “rugby machines” just as many soccer players have become so pampered they seem to be barely able to function without a squadron of lackeys attending to their every needs.

“We're not that bad (as soccer players),” Oliver said but added: “People can justify that we're professional now so we've got to take all these issues away from players but if you do that you're just going to get a whole bunch of young robots, not well adjusted to society and with no capacity to think for themselves. They just get churned out to be these rugby machines.

“And when the pressure comes on, as it does in one's career and you start playing badly, and self doubt kicks in or someone else is playing better you have to be able to handle that heat. If you've been mollycoddled and protected your whole career you're not going to be able to deal with that very well.

"There are examples of it everywhere. It wouldn't take long to look around and see who's not going so well and who's not handling it.”

The 2001 All Blacks that arrived in Ireland at the start of their end of season tour could have been forgiven for not handling the position they were placed in but as Oliver recalled they knuckled down and scored a 40-29 victory over the Irish.

“I played in that team when we were looking like we were going to lose but ended up winning. We'd had huge ructions in our team before we came over. We had a completely new coaching staff, a whole bunch of new players and we had to have it all integrated in about the three days we had together in New Zealand.

"Really there was no gameplan or anything, it was quite rudimentary preparation compared to what the team does now and it took about 40 to 50 minutes (of the game) to get to know each other.

"It was John Mitchell's first Test (as head coach) and we'd lost the last Test of the Tri-Nations and the previous coaches got sacked. Only the manager was left and so it was a complete change of management, philosophy and a whole new bunch of players. It was a big deal.”