"I'm going to coach Wales, and I'm leaving tonight."
Those were Graham Henry's blunt words in 1998, as the two-time Super 12-winning Auckland Blues coach shook New Zealand rugby to its core.
It led the New Zealand Union to introduce the so-called 'Henry clause', barring coaches who had taken positions overseas from ever leading the All Blacks.
 |  They've probably got the most potent brains trust in their history |
But seven years later Henry and All Blacks assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith - who followed his gold-laden trail to Europe - are the men charged with plotting the downfall of the 2005 Lions.
Hansen followed Henry into the Wales hot-seat and together they will have an intimate knowledge of the Grand Slam winners.
Smith's 30 months in charge of Northampton meanwhile will have acquainted him with all the England stars.
But will the trio's inside information on the European game give them the edge over Sir Clive Woodward's Lions?
Woodward has been a long-term critic of the involvement of foreign coaches in the UK.
His opinion of them cannot have been helped when Henry's Wales side denied his England team the Grand Slam at Wembley in 1999.
| I am very proud to be English. I was gutted when they gave the Lions to a foreigner |
Woodward would have to wait until 2003 to achieve that honour, and his pride was further stung when Henry became the first overseas coach to lead the Lions ahead of the 2001 trip to Australia.
But the Great Redeemer's halo in Wales was already slipping.
Henry's dramatic impact had been based on the clean slate he brought to Wales enabling unbiased selection, and the respect from the players owing to his southern hemisphere mystique.
The team ruthlessly carried out his rigid, pod-based game plan built around a heavyweight pack, a flat, kicking fly-half and a direct midfield combination.
But successive hammerings to France (36-3) and Woodward's England (46-12) at the start of the 2000 Six Nations suggested his system had been worked out, and the team's fleeting success was built on shakey foundations.
England's win left Henry bleating for the coaching support offered to Woodward, who could even count a visual-awareness specialist amongst his army of back-room staff.
Henry's meticulousness and professionalism were much in evidence on the 2001 Lions tour.
But as events unfolded he was accused of taking too much on himself, spending too much time with his analysis videos and failing as a man manager.
Post-Lions, Henry brought Hansen, Scott Johnson and Andrew Hore into his Wales management team, but his relationship with his players deteriorated and after a painful hammering in Ireland, he was on his way back to New Zealand.
Hansen was thrown in at the deep end with an ageing, demoralised team that needed rebuilding.
 Hansen's Wales troubled New Zealand at the World Cup |
His continual mantra that the players needed to work on their fitness and concentrate on performance over results wore very thin as Wales went on a record 11-game losing streak in the build-up to the 2003 World Cup.
But the tournament itself brought an upturn in fortunes as the pod manual went out the window and Wales shocked New Zealand by reverting to a traditional running game - with the fitness to back up their skills.
Few credit Hansen with this plan, as it is widely believed the players took the tactical decision upon themselves.
But a measure of their respect for Hansen as a man manager has been shown by the fact that no-one has gone public with this claim and that - since the Kiwi's departure last summer - the squad have had nothing but praise for his qualities.
Meanwhile, Henry had brought his organisational skills to bear with his old Auckland province, and was the man charged with taking the All Blacks forward after their 2003 World Cup disappointment.
"I have been dreaming about getting this job for 30 years, so I've been trying to plan and get myself right for it," he said at the time.
"I think you change your style. The Welsh experience was huge. I was very much a cup-winning coach, now I think I am more of a people coach."
Few in world rugby can match the natural skills of New Zealand, but their problem area for the past decade has been the lack of a dominant tight five.
 Henry's game-plan was ruthlessly executed against France last year |
Henry knows the qualities of the battle-hardened forwards available to Woodward, having sought ways for his lightweight Wales sides to overcome juggernaut England packs.
As well as bringing in Hansen to coach the forwards and Smith to take control of the backs, Henry added further to his back-room staff before the Lions' arrival.
Ex-Gloucester and France coach Dave Ellis is acting as a defence consultant and former Wallabies kicking specialist Mick Byrne was also brought in.
If last year's Tri-Nations performances were mixed, a crushing 45-6 win over France in Paris last November suggests that Henry's side have the fitness and nous to carry out their coach's master plans.
Come 9 July, we will know whether his northern hemisphere adventure, and those of his assistants, have swung the balance of world rugby back to the south.
MMIX
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