Henry had been New Zealand's chief defence strategist

A radical reshuffle of the All Blacks coaching staff will see Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith swap jobs.

The move was proposed by senior players in a bid to help invigorate the side after six years of the coaching regime.

Hansen, a former winger, will assume Smith's role as backs coach, and he, in turn, will become defensive coach.

Henry, who will remain as head coach but take over from Hansen as forwards coach, said that he and the players were "excited" about the unusual move.

"If you're a bit nervous about it, it brings the best out of you," said Henry, who had been responsible for New Zealand's defensive strategy.

"It's good for me to have that challenge. I've got energy, I'm excited about that opportunity and I'll be using a lot of the knowledge of the forward pack to help.

"We discussed it at some length and the reason behind it and they (the players) are excited."

Henry said the job swap was recommended by five senior players who saw it as a way of creating new ideas, voices and challenges for both players and coaches.

606: DEBATE Will this radical overhaul do the trick for the All Blacks?

The All Blacks are set for an end-of-season tour of Europe and will feature in the 2011 World Cup, which New Zealand will host.

The team's current coaching set-up has been in place for for six years and Henry said that while roles would change, each coach would continue to have input on different aspects of the game.

"We will be very tight in what we are doing in all of those roles," he said. "We will learn from each other and it's good to experience another role in the side."

New Zealand, ranked second in the world behind South Africa, have lost four of their nine Tests.

Assessing the changes, Hansen added: "It's something we talked about earlier in the year, how do we keep growing ourselves and the group, and on balance we thought this was probably the best time to do it.

"We are going to need to work closely together. We aren't going to change the blueprint we have been working on for a number of years. We've spoken to the senior core of players and they are excited about it."

New Zealand will play Australia in Tokyo on 31 October before continuing on to Europe, where they will face Wales, Italy, England, France and the Barbarians.

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