All Blacks halfback Aaron Smith gives his reaction after the historic loss to Argentina. Video / All Blacks / Sky TV
In the sporting environment created by Covid-19, travelling teams do not have the luxury of having the freedom to move that they had in years gone by.
For the All Blacks, instead of spending a week or two overseas before returning home, the current situation has seen them based inAustralia since late last month spending all of their time in the team environment.
For the past few weeks, they have had games to prepare for. But, with a bye on the horizon on the back of a loss to Argentina, coach Ian Foster said maintaining a balance between work and down time was going to be an important part of rejuvenating the side.
"How we switch on and switch off at this time - I know players have been away and they're not use to their normal support base around them in terms of family and all that stuff – but we've got to make sure that this group works hard in the next week so that when we actually start our prep for that last week, we're ready to go and are excited," Foster said.
"So, there will be a lot of training going, a few meetings, but also some time for them to switch off.
"There's a whole lot of cards that have been dealt to all the teams and the five tests in six weeks was something we knew, so there's no excuses; we made changes last week in order to deal with some of that.
"We've had our strategies and we're sticking to those, because the reality is, whilst we're incredibly disappointed with the loss, we've still got a job to do. You'll notice I didn't really use the word bye so much, it's more we haven't got a game at the end of the week, and we've got some work to do."
Sam Whitelock looks on during an All Blacks training session. Photo / Getty Images
While they go into the bye week at the top of the Tri Nations table, they won't be there after the Wallabies and Pumas clash this weekend as the winner of that will be the only team of the three with two wins to their name.
The break between tests comes at a good time for the All Blacks, who, over the last two weeks, suffered back-to-back losses for the first time since 2011 – one of which being their first-ever loss to Argentina.
Lock Sam Whitelock, the sole player to feature in that 2011 run still in the All Blacks squad, said the week ahead was important from a number of angles.
"The big thing for us is going back and having a good look at the game, and going back to how we approach the week. We've got about 12 days, so how we structure that will be critical.
"It's going to be a little bit different this week, but we have to take the lessons; we have to learn quicker while we're out there, but also during the week too."
