Read may be due for a break

Steve Hansen described it as ‘‘great for us’’.

Not because he enjoys watching the All Blacks play with 14 men. But such is captain Kieran Read’s influence over the team that even a 10-minute stint on the sideline wasn’t bad for everyone else’s development.

Read was sinbinned during the second half of New Zealand’s 36-10 win over Argentina on Sunday, with Dane Coles, Beauden Barrett and Luke Romano the three players to take charge in his absence. Head coach Hansen said he would’ve preferred things weren’t run by committee, but that he was at least heartened that people hadn’t been backward about coming forward.

It would seem daft to take Read all the way to Cape Town, just to give him a rest, but it can’t be long until he is given a game or two off.

Sam Whitelock, Sam Cane and Ryan Crotty are among those just back from a spell, while vicecaptain Ben Smith has been given the best part of half the year to recharge his batteries. Beyond them, other senior pros such as Israel Dagg and Jerome Kaino have had breaks from the continual grind of play-travel-play, if for differing reasons.

Hansen knows many of the team’s better players need a breather - Read, especially, with Sonny Bill Williams and Barrett potentially others.

In Whitelock, the Crusaders captain, and Cane, the Chiefs cocaptain, the coach has the luxury of proven leaders able to run things in Read’s absence. After the clash with South Africa, the team meet Australia in Brisbane on October 21, before games against the Barbarians, France, a France XV, Scotland and Wales on their end-of-year tour.

It’s then that Hansen said he’d get a good steer on how this idea of workload management had panned out.

In the meantime it seems fairly safe to assume Whitelock, Cane, Crotty - and fellow resters - Lima Sopoaga and Liam Squire will slot straight into Sunday’s starting XV. Or not.

‘‘We don’t have to name the team until Thursday and we’ve got some obvious decisions to make and we’ll make those over the next couple of days.’’