Sir Stephen William Hansen KNZM[1] and High Chief of Vaiala,[2] (born 7 May 1959) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player.

[3] He was the head coach of the New Zealand national team, the All Blacks, from 2012 to 2019, and won the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

A year later, Wales lost every match in the 2003 Six Nations Championship to win the Wooden Spoon for the first time since 1995, and went on to record a streak of 10 consecutive Test match defeats, broken by a defeat of rugby minnows Romania on 27 August 2003, though Hansen relinquished coaching duties for this game to Wales A coach Mike Ruddock.

[10] Hansen resumed charge for another victory over Scotland ahead of the 2003 Rugby World Cup, at which a strong display against New Zealand and a spirited quarter-final loss against England restored some faith in his coaching.

After the World Cup, Hansen announced that he would be stepping down as Wales coach at the end of the 2004 Six Nations Championship.

On 25 August, the All Blacks retained the Bledisloe Cup for a tenth consecutive year after their second match against Australia during the 2012 Rugby Championship.

In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours, Hansen was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to rugby.

[13] The All Blacks retained the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup, and won 14 of 14 matches, becoming the first team to ever do this in the professional era.

Hansen later led the team to a further three victories on their European tour, and was named World Rugby coach of the year.

[18] Hansen was having to deal with the retirements of previous key players in Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Keven Mealamu, Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith, with a guaranteed new mid-field trio needed to be tested.

Despite the losses of the retired 5, their replacements, Sam Cane, Aaron Cruden, Ryan Crotty and Malakai Fekitoa, for the first test had already earned 96 caps between them and had been in the All Blacks environment since 2012.

On 25 July, Hansen was reappointed as the All Blacks head coach, seeing the role through to the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

The All Blacks played Ireland again in their third week of the tour, this time, earning a 21–9 victory in Dublin, before going on to win 24–19 against France in Paris.

[21] The start of the 2017 Rugby Championship saw Hansen lead the All Blacks to a comprehensive win over Australia, 54–34 in Sydney.

In round three, Hansen made significant changes to his team against Argentina, but New Zealand saw out the victory 39–22, even though they were behind at half time.

In the fourth round, Hansen brought back his main players for their home game against South Africa.

On 4 November, Hansen led an experimental, youthful and inexperienced side to a 31–22 uncapped win over the Barbarians at Twickenham.

Despite a number of uncapped players in the squad, and without captain Kieran Read, Hansen led his side to a 3–0 series win and retained the Dave Gallaher Trophy for the fifth consecutive time.

It has been revealed on social media that Hansen will be assisting Wallabies coach, Eddie Jones for only a week prior to the start of his 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign in Australia's last warm-up match against the hosts, France who is also one of the favourites to win the tournament.