Former All Blacks captain Kieran Read has revealed that he and a group of Crusaders team-mates were left at home weeks before the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and has urged Australia to take the same risk before their home tournament in 2027.
“This is a month out from 2011 World Cup. And they were brave enough to say, ‘No, you boys need to rest’,” Read said on The Good, The Bad & Rugby Australia & New Zealand.
Would you rest the Wallabies’ best players before a home World Cup?
The 41-year-old was speaking with host Andy Rowe and former Wallabies hooker Jeremy Paul, in an episode published on 10 November.
The panel were discussing the Wallabies’ workload after a 45–22 defeat to England at Twickenham. Paul had argued that Australia’s leading players looked tired and should not have toured.
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‘Brave enough’
The Crusaders spent the 2011 Super Rugby season on the road after the Christchurch earthquake, played one “home” game at Twickenham and still reached the final. Read said the All Blacks coaches saw the cost.
“The All Blacks realised that us as Crusaders, we’d been travelling around the world,” Read said. “We’d done so many miles in a season. We hadn’t played at home.
“Made the final, so we had a full season and [they were] like, ‘No, you’re not coming to South Africa’. We played South Africa in Wellington and they didn’t even bring us into camp that week.
“They said, you guys, so about four or five of us, me, Richie, Dan, maybe Sam Whitelock, a few guys like that, ‘No, you stay in Christchurch’.
“So we weren’t able to influence the team.”
The record differs slightly from Read’s memory. New Zealand beat South Africa 40–7 in Wellington on 30 July 2011. The Test the Crusaders group missed was the return match in Port Elizabeth on 20 August, 20 days before the World Cup began, which a changed All Blacks side lost 18–5.
Richie McCaw captained New Zealand that year and Dan Carter was the first-choice fly-half. They won the tournament on home soil.
Two games before the tournament
Read said the group trained alone in Christchurch while the rest of the squad travelled to face South Africa.
“So we just trained here by ourselves. Didn’t go to South Africa. We just came in for the Wallabies games, Bledisloe,” he continued.
“So we only had two games pre World Cup, and so it can work if you do it well, you communicate how it’s done properly. It certainly refreshed myself and us.”
Rowe joked that the plan works “if you have five of the greatest players of all time”.
‘Sacrifice’ Super Rugby
Asked how he would freshen up the Wallabies, the former No 8 said the answer was a late start to next season.
“I think you’ve got to sacrifice a little bit of Super Rugby next year,” Read said. “So you got to go, OK, let’s bring them back in later. Let’s not bring them in first week of Jan, which they’re probably contractually supposed to be.
“Give them the rest of that month off to train by themselves, train with their family, go away to the beach, have some great time, train, come back in end of Jan and be actually wanting to come back into the game.”
He warned of what happens otherwise.
“So guys just accumulate, accumulate, accumulate and at some point [it] breaks,” he added.
Rowe summed up the choice facing Rugby Australia: “You either sacrifice Super Rugby or you sacrifice the Rugby World Cup.”
Australia host the World Cup in 2027.
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