All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has announced a pre-season 'well-being camp' in preparation for the British and Irish Lions Tour that kicks off in June 2017.
The camp will seek to address the discrepancy between the fitness and conditioning regimes of the Super Rugby franchises and the All Blacks set up.
All New Zealand rugby players are centrally contracted, making a more seamless transition from domestic to international rugby fitness-wise.
However players like Julian Savea have experienced issues with their fitness during early parts of the season when making the switch from Super Rugby level to the All Blacks.
Hansen didn't single out Savea but said that with the British and Irish Lions Tour starting in June, the All Blacks simply couldn't afford that kind of situation to eventuate in 2017.
"We just can't afford anyone to be behind the eight ball in June."
"Sometimes we get the luxury of allowing players to go through the June series and get in the right condition. [In 2017] they've got to turn up in the right condition."
The conflict between domestic and international rugby has reared its ugly head in England rugby with Eddie Jones blaming the contracting of individual franchises for injuries to star players after they arrived in England camp.
And Hansen said that this camp will hopefully go some way to avoiding anything like that happening in New Zealand.
"We're going to have a camp in January, not so much a rugby camp but a strength and conditioning camp, a well-being camp - let's call it that - which will be great.
"It'll allow them to go into Super Rugby in the best nick that we can possibly get them into at that point."
The All Blacks are renowned for their preparation when it comes to tours or tournaments and Hansen suggested that the Lions tour had been on the horizon for some time.
"With all our planning, we've already started planning for the World Cup.
"The next step is the Lions because it's going to be a massive tour, probably the best Lions team to come down for a long time, with what they've got to select."
While Hansen was confident with how the team had been tracking, he knew there was a lot of work to do.
"We've put a lot of work into what we want to do. We know we have to redevelop our game a little bit."
The dates of the camp aren't yet known but it's likely to be up to a week in duration, and take place before the players go into pre-season with their Super Rugby franchises.
Newshub.
