Sir Graham Henry says that the All Blacks have learned a lot from their tour of South Africa and realise the changes that must be made.
Dave Rennie’s men went 1-0 up in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series by beating the Springboks at Ellis Park but then suffered three straight defeats in Cape Town, Soweto and Baltimore.
Whilst the All Blacks have since bounced back, beating the Wallabies in back-to-back Bledisloe Cup encounters, Henry states that the team has taken a lot of learnings on board from the tour in South Africa, most importantly the way they train.
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The former head coach joined Rennie’s coaching team as a national selector and has had a close eye on the ins and outs of the team throughout the year. He explained that they realised that the intensity of the training sessions wasn’t close enough to what they would endure in a Test match, which has changed massively since tackling the Springboks.
“They’ve learned a huge amount from the South African tour. Probably the biggest thing they’ve learned is that they have to practice with the intensity and physicality that they play with,” Henry said in an interview with Martin Devlin on DSPN.
“There are some excuses there because between the first and second Test, there was a Lions fixture in Johannesburg on the Tuesday. So it wasn’t ideal preparation for the second Test because it was interfered with – for lack of a better word – by the Lions game.
“So I think the big thing is the boys now realise they’ve got to train, some of the time, at the same intensity that they play the game. That’s with physicality and speed, and it leaves you vulnerable.”
Training at that kind of intensity risks injuries, but Henry believes that it is needed in order to get the result on the weekend at the highest level. He added that the players aren’t training with that kind of intensity at their Super Rugby clubs, so it will have an adjustment period.
“So we’re losing the odd guy at training, which is very irritating when you lose people to training through injury,” he continued.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think they do it at any other level, so it’s a new experience for these guys. The big learning for me and the team is that they’ve got to spend some time during the week at that level at that level of intensity to produce it in the game on the weekend. I think that’s been a massive change.”
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What else will take time?
Another thing that will take time to adjust to is the players driving the new messages from the coaching team, with Rennie taking over from Scott Robertson earlier this year with only Jason Ryan retained as an assistant.
“The other thing, the players and the coaching, it takes time. The decision-makers, the guys who run the game on the field, and the coaches who coach the game, getting tighter and tighter, and I think they’re getting tighter and tighter, and that takes time,” he said.
“Like it’s a new group of coaches, not necessarily a new group of players, but so they’ve gotten closer and are communicating better and understand each other better.
“I’ve been massively impressed by the group; they make me feel welcome. I feel very privileged to be there, but I feel very welcome by the young men on the team and by the management of the team. I have obviously been blown away by the quality of the individuals in that group right through.
“In fact, when they came back from Australia, there have been reports of people being on the plane with these guys and saying what a great bunch of young men they are. So that’s really positive, and they’re starting to play well.”
Players aren’t fit enough yet for Rennie’s game plan
There has been a real contrast in styles between Robertson and Rennie, with the latter deploying a far more possession-based and up-tempo approach with ball in hand which leans into the All Blacks’ traditional strengths.
The players are starting to come to terms with the new structures, but Henry says that this game plan is physically demanding and that the players’ fitness is not where it needs to be yet. He said as much when asked how the All Blacks get better from here.
“We can only do what we can do – just keep working hard. Our fitness levels weren’t high enough, not for the game that we want to play,” he explained.
“The game we’re playing is very demanding, physically; they’re running the whole time. It was 40-odd minutes ball in play.”
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Devlin chipped in, saying, “I think it was over 50 in that Bledisloe Cup; it was a record for ball in play minutes, anyway.”
“It is usually early 30s; it is amazing what this team is trying to do, but it takes its toll, and you’ve got to be bloody fit,” Henry continued.
“I’m not saying they were unfit, but to play the game that Dave Rennie and the coaches want to play, you’ve got to be massively aerobically fit as well as strong and so on. The strength and conditioning is massive for this team to be playing the game they’re playing, and I still think we’re getting there with that.”