All Blacks camp date looks dire for the Chiefs in Durban
Their supporters may not be so understanding but the Chiefs are taking a pragmatic approach to a clash which will strip them of up to eight All Blacks while in South Africa this season.
New Zealand Rugby has released dates of six All Blacks and the Chiefs appear to have copped the worst of the clash in scheduling.
The All Blacks will hold four oneday camps this year; two in Christchurch and two more in the North Island. All Blacks in the Crusaders and Highlanders will attend the South Island camps; those in the Blues, Hurricanes and Chiefs the ones in Auckland and Wellington.
These seem minor with no major clashes but two more three-day camps later in the season create much more disruption.
The Chiefs are scheduled to play the Sharks in Durban on May 20, and chief executive Michael Collins confirmed a clash with the first three-day All Blacks camp will rob coach Colin Cooper of eight All Blacks including Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane, Damian McKenzie, Nepo Laulala, Kane Hames, Nathan Harris, Anton Lienert-Brown and Atu Moli.
It will be a hugely challenging week for a franchise already coping with major change after the departures of coach Dave Rennie and All Blacks halves Aaron Cruden and Tawera Kerr-Barlow.
The game against the Sharks is the second of a two-leg African tour. The Chiefs' All Blacks are now expected to return home after facing the Stormers in Cape Town.
“We understand the players that are selected for the French series will be required to attend the camp that clashes with the Sharks game,” Collins said. “Obviously it’s not ideal from our point of view, you want to put your very best team on the park but in saying that we recognise the need to support those players and their aspirations to be All Blacks.
“It's going to be massively challenging and to make it worse those matches in South Africa the stadiums there are a real cauldron. It is challenging but it is what it is. We've been forewarned — the coaches will be strategising how they overcome those issues.”
The second three-day All Blacks camp comes in a week where the Crusaders host the Hurricanes in Christchurch. This means Chris Boyd and Scott Robertson may only have two days with their full squads before the Friday night derby.
Meanwhile, NZR has confirmed the Hamilton sevens will, from 2020, be a fully integrated men’s and women’s tournament.
Women were top of the agenda at NZR’s first board meeting of the year. And the future looks bright. NZR and the Players’ Association are close to expanding the collective agreement to cover the country’s top women’s XVs players, and will try to add another 15-a-side women’s tournament to complement club rugby, the Farah Palmer Cup and Black Ferns.
On the back of the success of the Hamilton sevens, NZR appears to have heeded strong criticism from the likes of Portia Woodman around the absence of the Black Ferns sevens team. NZR’s contract for the sevens has one more year to run. The 2019 event will feature some form of women’s invitational sevens competition, and should they win the hosting rights for 2020-23, Hamilton would then stage men and women equally. Eighteen countries are bidding to host 10 World Series events from 2020.