Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt, left, and All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen have a pre-match chat before the test in Dublin.

Steve Hansen has been offered a two-year extension after his All Blacks coaching contract runs out after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, according to one news report.

NZME said it understood that New Zealand Rugby had told Hansen he could stay on for more two years if he wanted to.

That would see him coach the national side until two years out from the 2023 World Cup before handing over to a new coach.

Hansen is due to decide before Christmas whether he wants to stay on after next year's World Cup in Japan.

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"I decided before I left [New Zealand] I was going to make one," he said after the All Blacks lost to Ireland in early November.

PHIL WALTER/GETTY IMAGES AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - JUNE 05: All Black coach Steve Hansen during a New Zealand All Blacks training session on June 5, 2018 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Hansen, 59, said during the northern tour he wasn't interested in coaching another country in the immediate future. Rather than chase a high-profile job elsewhere, he would prefer to stay in New Zealand if he wanted to keep coaching.

"That's the $64 million question isn't it?," he told Stuff in London, when asked if he would reapply for the job. "You have got to keep doing it as long as you are enjoying it, as long as you are adding value. As long your family can cope with it, I guess.

"If I didn't want to stay coaching the All Blacks, then I can't see myself coaching another international team in the near future.

"I would be better off staying where I am, so it doesn't matter what team you coach the time commitments and pressures are pretty similar. I wouldn't see any point doing that."

STUFF Charles Piutau and Steven Luatua quit the All Blacks to make a better life in England.

There has been speculation that if retires from coaching the All Blacks, NZ Rugby could look at creating a high performance role in a bid to keep tapping into his intellectual property.

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt had been tipped as a successor as All Blacks coach, but he announced on Monday that he was retiring from coaching after he guides Ireland's World Cup bid in Japan.