All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has taken a potshot at northern hemisphere unions ahead of a cumbersome start to England’s tour of New Zealand next month.

England will field a weakened team for the first Test in Auckland next week as several of their top players are involved in the English Premiership final between Saracens and Northampton this weekend.

England coach Steve Lancaster will select additional players from those teams next week to add to an initial squad of 30 unveiled on Monday. The first group land in New Zealand on Thursday to prepare for the Eden Park Test on June 7.

Hansen is frustrated another June Test series has been compromised by a European club schedule.

New Zealand Rugby is pushing for the international window to be shifted to avoid such clashes and also allow a revamped Super Rugby competition to play through without the momentum-sucking three-week June break.

However, that proposal was knocked back at an IRB meeting in Dublin last week.

Three Six Nations representatives on a working group assessing the prospect of a global season were reportedly quick to reject the concept.

Hansen says the situation needs to change for the good of top-flight rugby.

“There’s just a real obvious solution, to move the Test series to July,” he said.

“I don’t know why they don’t want to do that up there, they must think it’s going to be an advantage to us. In fact it would be an advantage to them.”

Hansen sympathised with Lancaster’s plight but it didn’t stop him taking a swipe at the size of England’s tour squad which has been given the green light by the well-resourced Rugby Football Union.

“There’s about 50 of them coming, isn’t there? How many did he name in the end?” Hansen says.

“Until he names all of them, I won’t get too excited.”