Have squad of McCaws
stood out for all those years was because he could handle a whole lot of work. He loved to get out on the Port Hills or on his bike and smash himself up the hills. He loved that hard work. ‘‘
Now here’s something that should make other international teams shiver just a little.
The All Black workload is getting tougher every year. And they’re thriving on it the way McCaw did.
Five years ago, says Gill, if he prescribed the work the current side does McCaw could have handled it, but there might have been a group of five or six who would have been injured. Now there are none.
Why? ‘‘Because of the academy systems, the Super Rugby systems, and the professionalism of the players,’’ says Gill, ‘‘they’re able to tolerate a lot more.’’
Watch an All Black like Jerome Kaino closely now, and one of the most outstanding, if largely unremarked, features of his play, is how he bounces back so quickly from contact.
The way he and his teammates remain involved so much, thanks to their fitness levels, is the reason the All Blacks often seem to have extra men on the field. Overlaps become the norm when players are involved more than once in a movement.
Two men in particular have been influential in shaping Gill’s methods.
One is rowing coach Dick Tonks. Just before he joined the All Black camp in 2008 Gill ran the off the water strength work for New Zealand rowing, so he saw Tonks’ methods at close range.
Even though Eric Murray and Hamish Bond excoriated Tonks in their recent book for a lack of man management, Murray told me just after they severed relations with Tonks in 2012 that, ‘‘I’d give him 11 out of 10 for his fitness training.’’
As with Lydiard, the Tonks’ mantra was to work hard, and then work much, much harder.
Gill says that, like Tonks, the All Blacks, ‘‘don’t try to overcomplicate things, we just try to be bloody good at them. His philosophy was that if you can’t handle the workload you’re not going to be an Olympic champion.’’
Another coach he admires is a Canadian ironman expert, Kristian Manietta.
‘‘He’s very much of the opinion it’s not about always changing what we do, but repetition,’’ says Gill. ‘‘Getting really good at the basics allows us to work super hard, because we’re familiar with what we’re doing.’’