Robbie Deans says he wouldn't change a thing if he had his time over as Wallabies coach, despite dipping player behavioural standards ultimately leading to his downfall.
Breaking his 15-month silence on his axing after Australia's 2-1 series loss to the touring British and Irish Lions last year, Deans challenged claims he was too lenient on James O'Connor, Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale when the so-called Three Amigos repeatedly broke team protocol.
Wallabies factions were said to be fed up by some of the young guns' antics by the time O'Connor and Beale were photographed with a Lions fan at a fast food outlet at almost four o'clock in the morning three days before the second Lions Test.
"The fact of the matter is we were criticised at the time for being too hard on those blokes," Deans told AAP ahead of the release of his autobiography Red, Black & Gold on Thursday.
"But they only had two events. One was the (2009) food fight in Canberra and they (O'Connor, Cooper and Josh Valentine) were fined a huge amount, I think an unprecedented amount.
"The other time was James being late for the (2011) World Cup team announcement and he was dropped right out of the team for the deciding Tri Nations Test.
"So to suggest they were given too much slack is nonsense. They were treated as harshly as anybody else."
The Three Amigos were also involved in an altercation on the 2010 European tour, but the senior leadership group dealt with that incident internally.
Cooper never played another Test under Deans after infamously labelling the Wallabies environment "toxic" in September 2012.
And senior players were understood to be at the end of their tether when O'Connor and Beale were snapped at Burger King - and less than a month later Deans was out of a job.
"The night they were out late, it was dumb. It was stupid," Deans said from Japan, where he is now coaching Berrick Barnes' Panasonic Wild Knights.
"But aside for that, it wasn't alcohol-related or didn't involve property or the public."
Asked if any of his young playmakers let him down, Deans said: "Obviously those three instances we talked about, they let their teammates down - and themselves - but they were dealt with."
Deans went out on a limb in picking O'Connor to play five-eighth for the Lions series and, after an up and down campaign, the coach was gone and his successor, Ewen McKenzie, shifted the classy backline utility to the wing for his first Test in charge a month later.
But O'Connor had his ARU contract torn up two months later after being removed from Perth airport while intoxicated.
