GPS units attached to shirts provide feedback to make sure everyone’s performing well.
If you want to be an All Black you have to be prepared to be scrutinised - not only by the public and media and multi-angled television camera shots that beam tests into lounges all over the world, but also by a satellite that tracks your every step.
Now, morethan ever, there is no hiding place for the modern rugby player. Coaches want results and they want statistical information, and increasingly the two go hand-in-hand.
The All Blacks, like most other professional teams, are monitored during matches by a GPS unit that fits in a pouch inside their jersey.
The unit - about the size of a matchbox - is monitored by a satellite and feeds to a computer information such as top speed and distance run.
It can help coaches monitor the workrate of players during matches and training to see how effective each is and how hard he is working, to avoid over-training.
The players are used to wearing the units, which have been used in rugby for more than five years. Most players aren't conscious of wearing them until a particular warm-up technique in training - the humble roly poly - gives them a painful reminder.
So it was on the training field at the All Blacks' Teddington base on the banks of the Thames recently that midfielder Conrad Smith got a painful shock as he went through a warm-up routine with the rest of the team.
Smith said this week: "They obviously put them in a spot where you hardly ever land on them but there are times when you can land on one - a roly poly would be an example - and it's right on your spine so you certainly know it's there."
Smith is a firm believer in the benefits of the information the GPS can provide.
"You don't think about them too much because we're literally wearing them every training and every game. I know when they first came out the boys wanted to do some extra lengths in the warm-ups because suddenly everything was getting measured so you wanted to put in more effort. But now I forget it's even there.
"It's great, it measures your overall output, how far you've travelled, and also your top speed. They can work out your percentage - how much time sprinting, how much time jogging, and how much time walking. That will all come back to the trainers and coaches within a day and we can see that information.
"In big games you can run 8km or 9km and it tends to be halfbacks and midfielders and some of the outsides [wings]. The thing I'm always surprised about is that the difference between a front rower and the highest [distance run] isn't that much.
"We are always warned that they are not 100 per cent accurate.
"Some stadiums can affect the [signal] because sometimes you feel really sore and have run a long way but sometimes the stats don't suggest that.
"Usually the case is you know you're knackered and you can tell you've run a long way and the information tells you exactly that."
The All Blacks could claim to be the fittest rugby team in the world due to the work put in by their Super Rugby franchise trainers and Nic Gill, the national team's trainer.
And with that fitness comes expectation. Walking on the field is not acceptable and neither is being off your feet for too long, no matter whether you've just made a big tackle or have been trapped under bodies in a ruck.
The All Blacks coaches believe if you're off your feet, you're out of the game, so the players get a frequent reminder more immediate and prosaic than a GPS unit.
You can hear it, too, if you listen at home on the TV or at the stadium if you're connected to the referee's microphone - it's the voice of little halfback Aaron Smith screaming to his teammates: "Get up!"
