Don't be too smug, All Blacks warned

Darren Shand

The All Blacks management have lectured the players on the need to ward off complacency ahead of the Tri-Nations rugby competition.

Manager Darren Shand confirmed last night that the 30-man squad had met last Thursday in Christchurch, where team management had their say.

Mr Shand said it was fair to say some players in the Tri-Nations squad had shown signs of complacency, in preparation and performance, during the three early season tests against Ireland and Argentina.

"That's why they were given the message. We felt it important from a management point of view for us to put a dictate down, to put a line in the sand, say, 'Look boys, we need to reach this point and we don't feel we're there now'."

Asked for the signs of player complacency that so worried management, Mr Shand responded: "Have a look at our performances. We don't think the way we prepared was good enough; that's right across the group.

"We have to keep raising the bar and demand a high standard. We don't think we had those levels in the group previously."

New Zealand won all three tests but none in convincing fashion.

Coaches Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith used an enlarged squad of 39 for those tests to look at candidates for the Tri-Nations series, starting against Australia in Christchurch on Saturday.

"The whole package was something we were not happy with early in the campaign," Shand said.

"It was the first time we had the whole group of 30 together [in Christchurch] because we basically ran two squads in the early part of the season."

Shand said management had always planned to gather the Tri-Nations squad, named last Tuesday, together ahead of their official assembly in Christchurch today.

"We needed to get the whole 30 together before we assembled today to lay out the strategies and objectives for the upcoming Tri-Nations."

Shand would not divulge what management had told the players, other than to say the issue of complacency formed only a small part of a meeting lasting three hours.

Meanwhile, Shand denied a Sunday News newspaper report yesterday which claimed some All Black players tried leaving their Buenos Aires hotel in Argentina last month without settling their room accounts.

- NZPA