Rugby-Tough tour schedule offers learning opportunity for All Blacks, Robertson says

(Reuters) – Scott Robertson believes he is going to find out a lot about his All Blacks team over the next six weeks given the tough schedule he was handed for his first end-of-season tour as coach.

The tour opens in Japan on Oct. 26 before the All Blacks take on Northern Hemisphere powers England, Ireland and France in successive weeks with the final test against Italy on Nov. 23.

“When you got the schedule over a year ago, you looked at it and thought, ‘okay, here we go, we’ll find out a bit about ourselves’,” Robertson told reporters before the squad left Auckland on Thursday.

“We’ve had time to prepare well. When you’re on tour, it does some great things. You can get tight and get a collective buy-in, and that’s what we’re looking forward to.”

Robertson accepts that the gap between Southern and Northern Hemisphere rugby has closed and thinks that will make for some intriguing contests.

“If you look at it in the historical stats, you know the game’s evened up,” he added.

“Smaller margins, tighter matches. Defensively, teams are better, they’re more aggressive, they turn you in.

“But there’s still opportunities, so that’s what we’re looking for. And people going into the match thinking, ‘what’s going to happen?’, that’s the entertaining part of the game.”

New Zealand, losing finalists at last year’s World Cup, are currently ranked third in the world after a disappointing Rugby Championship in which they were beaten twice by South Africa and once, at home, by Argentina.

Robertson has also had to contend with a bit of an injury crisis in the back row with Ethan Blackadder, Luke Jacobson and Dalton Papali’i all forced to pull out of the squad on Wednesday.

Uncapped loose forward Peter Lakai and lock Josh Lord have been called up as cover and Robertson said number eight Hoskins Sotutu would have been on the plane too had he not suffered a knee injury that will require surgery.

Robertson said the team for the first match against the Brave Blossoms would feature fringe players, but suggested scrumhalf Cam Roigard would get a run as he continues his return from injury.

Robertson, a former All Blacks loose forward, said he was expecting some hostility from the crowds in London, Dublin and Paris but was looking forward to that too.

“That’s all part of it, isn’t it?” he said. “I think that the passion that they bring, the singing, the getting early to the game and have a couple of quiet ones, it’s just a different atmosphere. We’ll embrace that and look forward to it.”

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)