Rugby: All Blacks hit gym with massive workout to vent frustration

They're used to flexing their muscles on the pitch but following their defeat at the weekend, New Zealand's stars were forced to vent their frustration in the gym.

Led by Sam Whitelock and Jerome Kaino some of the All Blacks' stars were put through their paces with various weight and core exercises.

Tuesday's gym session would have been a good way to blow off some steam after the reigning world champions suffered a 40-29 loss at the hands of Ireland at the weekend in Chicago.

And judging by their workout Steve Hansen's side are keen to right the wrongs of that defeat ahead of this weekend's clash with Italy.

Whitelock worked on his chest with a bench press, while Kaino and Wyatt Crockett focused on strengthening their backs with dead lifts.

All Black fly-half Beauden Barrett was another who worked up a sweat with upper body exercises using cables as Dane Coles performed abdominal crunches on a pull-up bar.
New Zealand are in Rome ahead of their match against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday afternoon.

Tawera Kerr-Barlow was another who attended the gym session in the Italian capital
And speaking ahead of that clash Crockett, who didn't feature in the Ireland setback, has admitted that the squad are smarting from their Chicago performance.

"It certainly hurts but the beautiful thing is we get to come out this week and hopefully put in a good week's training and then put a performance in that we are really proud of against Italy," he said.

"After a loss, you generally try and learn as much as you can from that - what went wrong, where were we lacking, I guess to try and make some adjustments, make some improvements to our game and work on those things during the week and then hopefully that comes out in the game.

"Hopefully, we'll see some improvements in the areas we needed to be at the weekend," he said.

"As an All Black, you don't want to get blase about losing so the mood in the shed after the game was pretty quiet but you have got to move on quickly and you've got to start thinking about the next week.

"You go through that then you wake up in the morning and get back to work. You can't afford to hang your lip on the ground for too long."