All Blacks coach Steve Hansen is calling for an overhauled rugby calendar which allows an off-season break of up to four months for Test players.
With World Rugby considering how Test rugby will be structured from 2020, veteran coach Hansen has weighed in with the need to put player welfare first.
He said the quality of Test rugby is compromised by relentless fixture demands.
The countries that handle it best are world champions New Zealand and second-ranked Ireland, he said, both of which have buy-in between their national union and clubs to manage training and playing minutes for all players.
Even that isn’t enough, Hansen said, pointing to the tired output of his world class lock Sam Whitelock in recent Tests.
Captain of the Super Rugby champion Crusaders for two successive seasons, Whitelock is paying the price for a lengthy injury-free run and is likely to be offered a delayed start to rugby in 2019.
“Currently they don’t get enough of a break and you’ve just got to look at Sam Whitelock. You can’t keep going round and round and round and round and round without running out of petrol – at some stage you’ve got to recharge the tank,” Hansen told journalists in Tokyo.
“I don’t know how you’d structure it, but the one thing I’d really want is that everyone gets 16 weeks break between their last game and their next one.”
Having the All Blacks at optimum energy levels for big Tests away to England and Ireland next month has been an exercise in forward-planning.
Following Saturday’s 37-20 win over Australia in Yokohama, a group of 23 leading players will depart early for London this week and be replaced by an effective second XV to face Japan on Saturday.
Next week’s Test at Twickenham will highlight Hansen’s point, with England missing a virtual first XV of players because of injuries.
Hansen believed that could be traced back as far as the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand 16 months ago. The English players haven’t had any meaningful break since because of the demands of the Premiership.
“The England boys I think have suffered a bit from the Lions tour and it’s not only one season, it kicks on,” he said.
“It’s a worldwide problem and probably the team that’s managing it best at the moment is Ireland.
“They’re pretty dictatorial about what they do. They go ‘you can’t play’ because they own the players and the franchises completely. They’ve got a good model.”