Henry to 'rest' his All Blacks again
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:46
Winning combination: Graham Henry and Richie McCaw. (c) Gallo
Coach Graham Henry says leading All Blacks may have to be rested during next year's inaugural Super 15 tournament to ensure their fitness for the World Cup in New Zealand later in the year.
Henry said he would meet with New Zealand Super 15 coaches shortly to discuss the increased workload imposed on players by the expansion of Super Rugby from 14 to 15 teams in 2011.
He said top players would have to be carefully managed to ensure they avoid burnout in a lengthened season.
Henry's comments were echoed later Wednesday by Reds Super 15 coach Ewen McKenzie, who said he would combat the lengthened 2011 season by implementing a rotation policy which would extend to the Wallabies duo of Will Genia and Quade Cooper.
The length of the Super Rugby season will increase from 16 to 21 weeks with the addition of a fifth Australian franchise and both Henry and McKenzie said the burden on players would grow with the additional matches.
"The main difference would be the load," McKenzie said.
"It's just literally longer and we found when we went from Super 12 to Super 14 [in 2006] there was a big difference. It doesn't sound like much when you say it but the bodies have to get used to that.
"It means the rotation of players will be a bit more relevant."
Henry said it was "ridiculous" to think any player could play in every week of the new tournament.
"I just think guys need to make sensible decisions so that people play at a high standard all the time and we will be discussing that with the Super 15 coaches in late September," he said.
Henry said each team would receive two byes in the season and spelling players for an additional two weeks to ensure they had four weeks off during the season was "a reasonably logical way of looking at it."
Henry controversially succeeded in having All Blacks stood down for seven weeks of the Super 14 before the 2007 World Cup in France.
New Zealand's failure at that tournament was later partly blamed on players' lack of matchplay.
SAPA-AP
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