Lee Stensness: Loss of midweek fixtures leads to experimentation

As the 2005 All Blacks continue through their Grand Slam tour, the talk - other than about 'tackle-gate' - has been about the All Blacks experimenting in important test matches.

While some may feel the All Black jersey has lost some of its value, it is necessary because there are no midweek matches on All Black tours any more. Some rugby followers and pundits lament the absence of midweek matches, but should they?

We recently experienced the Lions of 2005 as an appropriate example of the challenges of a tour with midweek games. Putting aside the difficulties associated with combining players from four nations with longstanding and often bitter rivalries, the Lions proved that, logistically, touring with midweek games is a nightmare.

With the need to cover all positions, both weekend and midweek, the touring group becomes too large. There are too many players for all to be meaningfully employed, which eventually leads to player dissatisfaction and then team harmony can be affected.

Another issue is that the demands of test preparation necessitate a second coaching team to look after the midweek team, further enlarging the tour party.

In 1993, when the All Blacks undertook a six-week tour of England and Scotland with midweek games, the focus was rightly on the test side, meaning the midweek team were left to their own devices for much of the week leading up to the tests.

Fortunately there were senior players such as John Mitchell, who became like a de facto coach, to keep the structures, standards and morale high. The more demanding professional era makes a second management group necessary, as was the case with the Lions.

While midweek teams in the past have developed players and ensured there are plentiful match-fit replacements available for winning a test series or a Grand Slam, they are also a distraction and complication that a touring party could do without.

With the modern trend of large touring squads, even for short tours, set to continue, there is a popular assertion that All Black jerseys are being given away. On the current four-test tour there are 35 players. If midweek games were included there would need to be a minimum of 40 players, or, even as many as 45. Now that would be giving All Black jerseys away.

The New Zealand Juniors team is effectively the midweek All Black team, except they undertake their own separate tour. That is a better avenue to develop a wider group of players as it has its own distinct identity and purpose and retains the 'sanctity' of the All Black jersey.

Midweek touring teams can add to a tour's momentum from a host country point of view - as with the 2005 Lions midweek team which retained pride in their performance even when test selection was beyond them.

But, in the professional era, the difficulties outweigh the benefits.