A number of high profile All Blacks played every game of Super Rugby Pacific this season including centre Rieko Ioane, halfback Cortez Ratima and blindside flanker Samipeni Finau.
This marks a significant deviation from previous All Blacks resting policies which would see blanket enforced breaks for top players.
It was a priority for Scott Robertson to change how they managed the All Blacks as the “one for all” policy didn’t work for players that potentially needed more game time, whether to find form or return to form after injury.
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“One thing I did when I first came in, I wanted to change the narrative around it,” Robertson told Pine on All Blacks resting.
“You know ‘All Black rest’, that’s sort of gone in the last couple of years. I wanted to individualise it because you want to get the best out of players.
“Some players have been injured the year before and had to have five games of rest, some players just need six, seven, eight games.”
One of the high profile cases was All Black loose forward Ethan Blackadder a couple of years ago who had only played a handful of games due to injury over a two-year period.
As an All Black, when he was fit, he was forced on rest despite missing large chunks of the season.
The changes made by Robertson has led to treating All Blacks on a case-by-case basis, with a more tailored approach.
“Those guys were managed in the background, they still play when they needed to, but they were managed in the background off the field with their training still to get the best out of them.
“So more individualised, to get the best out of them. You learn by playing, get better by playing.
“Everyone was different, some players had less, some players had more, but it wasn’t made public. So we didn’t have articles and people going ‘the All Blacks aren’t playing, I’m not watching’.
“The narrative has changed a bit and it’s working.”
