Rugby: All Blacks coach Steve Hansen blasts World Rugby for lack of support for Pacific nations

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Photosport

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has taken aim at World Rugby for not doing enough for Pacific Island rugby following the All Blacks' 92-7 thrashing of Tonga.

Pacific teams such as Tonga, Samoa and Fiji have struggled to develop upon their obvious potential recently, lacking the opportunity to regularly play against the world's best sides.

The scrapped Nations Championship idea - which would have seen all of the world's best sides play each other in a round-robin format - would have aided the game in the Pacific, and Hansen blamed World Rugby for not providing teams like Tonga with enough test matches.

"The problem that we've got is a calendar that doesn't allow you to do that," Hansen said.

"We have these wonderful ideas about growing the game but we don't have an organisation at the top that wants to be strong enough to say 'righto - this is what we're doing, we're going to have a global season.

"The Six Nations rule world test rugby programs. They don't want to give that up and until they're prepared to give that up, we're not going to see any progress in that area."

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen. Photo / Photosport

Hansen said he had sympathy for Tongan coach Toutai Kefu, who had little time to prepare his Tongan side, and regularly struggles to get players even released to play by their European clubs.

"It's really difficult [for me] when your players play for five different franchises in New Zealand," Hansen said.

"So I can only imagine how difficult it would be when your players are playing all over the world and you're bringing them back and you don't have much time to prepare them.

"Whatever happened yesterday, [Tonga] will get way better by the time they get to the tournament."