Robbie Deans lost his last match in charge to Warren Gatland's British & Irish Lions © PA Photos

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Australia's rugby powerbrokers were in the process of removing Robbie Deans as Wallabies coach in the week before the team was thumped 41-16 in the series decider against the British & Irish Lions, his assistant Andrew Blades has revealed.

Blades, who remains the Wallabies scrum guru under Deans' successor, Ewen McKenzie, still regrets not stepping in to remove "unsettling" tremors and sharpen the team's focus. Despite a series-levelling 16-15 win over the Lions in Melbourne the weekend before, the writing was on the wall for Deans before the decider in Sydney on July 6. Blades remains irritated the moving and shaking wasn't left for another day.

"For me, that was one of the hard things in the lead-up to the third Test was all the sense and speculation going on and people getting pulled aside here and there," Blades told NZ Newswire as the Wallabies prepared for their final game of the year against Wales in Cardiff.

"It was very distracting in that last week ...everyone was looking over their shoulders. It was pretty unsettling for the group."

Deans looked and spoke like a man who knew his fate before and immediately after the match, and Blades said this week that players and coaches alike sensed "a lot of things going on in the background".

"Not everyone's mind was on what was important that weekend," the Rugby World Cup-winning prop said.

Blades has only praise for Deans as a man and mentor.

The former All Blacks full back and Crusaders coach, the Wallabies' first foreign coach, was under pressure once he was re-contracted before Rugby World Cup 2011, where Australia were knocked out by New Zealand in the semi-finals.

"He always used to say 'It's not about me it's about the team, let's just get on with it'," Blades said. "You haven't heard boo from him since, and he's that sort of bloke and he always wants the best for people. I've been mates with Ewen since we played, and even though I only knew Robbie for that short time he's someone I'll keep in contact with because he's a good bloke and he cares for people."

That care ultimately hurt Deans as frustrated senior players lost patience with wayward stars Kurtley Beale and James O'Connor, who disappointed the coach and team with repeated misdemeanours.

"Robbie had a way of dealing personally with those blokes," Blades said. "Sometimes people are looking for public executions but he did a lot of work behind the scenes with guys helping them getting through things. It probably wasn't appreciated how much of that sort of stuff he did do himself. He didn't feel the need to chop someone's head off in public, but that might create the feeling that it wasn't done."