Henry has sympathy for England

New Zealand coach Graham Henry admits to having some sympathy for the English team as their off-field distractions continue unabated.

England are in Christchurch preparing for their second Test against New Zealand tomorrow but are in the midst of dealing with claims of an alleged rape and/or sexual assault by four players in the team’s Hilton Hotel in Auckland in the early hours of Sunday morning after the 37-20 defeat to the All Blacks.

No formal complaint has been made so far and the four, as yet unnamed, players in question have declined to speak with police after taking independent legal advice.

Henry admitted it was hard not to feel some sympathy for the tourists.

“I know there is a bit going on but quite frankly I don’t know what the details are at all,” he said.

“You don’t want any sporting team to be going through those situations. You live that sort of life yourselves in a sporting international environment and you’ve got a lot of sympathy for people who go through that situation.

“I can’t comment any further because I don’t know any detail, but certainly you have some thoughts which you’d just like to be supportive.”

The All Blacks coach said rather than his team being distracted by England’s off-field issues, his players are focused on the task ahead.

“We just have to focus on what we have to do,” he added.

“That hasn’t changed. We are trying to improve our performance from the last Test match, trying to go up the graph a bit.

“We’ve got some new players playing in this Test who need to play, so they need to bed in. We’ve just been focused on what we need to do and that doesn’t change from Test match to Test match. What else is happening doesn’t really affect us.”

Forwards coach Steven Hansen said yesterday he expected England to “batten down the hatches” and unite as a team, believing the controversy and the fact that they lost at Eden Park last weekend would galvanise the side.

Captain Richie McCaw echoed those thoughts, saying: “From experience whenever you come off a defeat it’s makes you a bit tighter, your backs are against the wall and you come out and throw everything into it – that’s what we’re expecting from England,” the flanker said.

“They would have hurt from last week and I’m sure they would have been getting themselves sorted to come out and give it a good crack.

“We are expecting a better England team because of that. Obviously they’ve got a game under their belt and we’re just going to have to make sure we are better as well.”