Most All Blacks will miss at least the first week of Super Rugby next year after being guaranteed a minimum 12-week off-season break ahead of the World Cup.
Coach Steve Hansen says negotiations between the New Zealand Rugby high performance division and the five franchises resulted in agreement that top players had been returning too quickly for previous Super Rugby campaigns.
To give them more time to physically and mentally repair, Hansen says a 12-week gap will bring the All Blacks in line with other professional players in New Zealand, resulting in most of them returning ahead of second round fixtures starting on February 20.
He says the addition of Argentina to an expanded Rugby Championship has heaped a greater workload on Test players and many have started the following year in sluggish condition.
“They’re our golden eggs. They’re the ones we should be looking after most and in the past we probably haven’t been,” Hansen said.
“We’ve been asking them to come back sooner than we need to. It’s a no-brainer that they need 12 weeks.”
Former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry courted controversy in 2007 when he won the right to withdraw a number of top players from the first half of the Super Rugby season.
He put them on a rest and conditioning programme for that year’s World Cup, where New Zealand were eliminated in the quarter-finals.
Next year’s scheme doesn’t have the same impact on the Sanzar competition although Hansen says some senior players will miss more than a week as they have inserted a late return clause into their contracts.
Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder has said forwards Kieran Read and Sam Whitelock are unlikely to play until week five starting on March 13.
One exception to the 12-week rule could be at the Hurricanes who will struggle to field a backline for their opening game against the Lions in Johannesburg.
Some of their six All Blacks backs may be called on.
“There’s got to be a bit of common sense as well,” Hansen said.
Super Rugby starts a week earlier than usual next year and won’t have a break because there is no June international window in a World Cup year.
