All Blacks captain Richie McCaw goes through his routines at the captain's run held at Eden Park in Auckland on the eve of the second and deciding Bledisloe Cup rugby test match. 22 August 2014 New Ze
Brian O'Driscoll, the former Ireland and British and Irish Lions midfielder, believes the All Blacks will win next year's World Cup because of their much higher skill factor relative to other nations, and the fact the team doesn't seem obsessed with the gym culture threatening to overwhelm the game in
the Northern Hemisphere.
As concern in the United Kingdom mounts about players becoming ever bigger - with dangerous impacts seemingly becoming the norm - O'Driscoll, the most capped test player of all time with 141, has added to the debate by saying pushing weights rather than focusing on improving skills can be counter-productive.
He told the Daily Mail: "I never loved doing weights the way these young guys do. Their technique is phenomenal but it's as if they're winning if they have great scores in the gym. They're not . . . they're rugby players.
"I'm not privy to the English set-up but at the academies in Ireland there is a huge focus on the weights room, as opposed to whether they can throw a 10-metre pass on the run. They should be rugby players becoming athletes, not athletes becoming rugby players."
O'Driscoll, 35, who retired from international rugby this year and will attend next year's World Cup as a media pundit, believes the All Blacks will deserve to be favourites.
