Rugby World Cup: Support grows as teams ready for Cup

The All Blacks during a team training session in London. Photo / Brett Phibbs

It will be a team of 51 people who will be credited with winning the World Cup for the All Blacks should it happen. That's the total size of their team in London - 31 players, plus 20 coaching staff.

It sounds like overkill, but this is the norm in professional rugby these days. There's probably a joke to be had about how many All Blacks it takes to change a lightbulb given the size of their touring party, but they are not out of sync with other teams at the World Cup.

World Rugby pick up the accommodation and internal travel bills for the 20 World Cup teams. No team can take more than 31 players or sneak a few extras along as an insurance policy and have them train with the squad. They can take more coaching and management staff if they want ... it's just World Rugby won't pay for more than 20.

At the 2007 World Cup, the limit World Rugby would pay for was 15 coaching staff. Eight years on and there has been a 25 per cent increase.

This shows not only how quickly professional rugby has changed in terms of the support needs of the athletes, but it also, kind of, suggests that when Clive Woodward took the Lions to New Zealand in 2005 with a cast of what felt like thousands, maybe he was ahead of his time.

But maybe not. His coaching staff of 26 contained a special adviser - former referee David McHugh was there to guess how the laws may be interpreted. Also on that trip was a legal adviser, a chef and, of course, former Prime Minister Tony Blair's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell.

The All Blacks haven't found room for anyone or anything like that in their mix. Their 20-strong group contains the usual specialists: an assistant coach, two specialist coaches (skills and forwards), a conditioning coach, doctor, physio, mental skills coach and video analyst.

Typically, this would be the limit of an All Blacks touring party - with the addition of a kit man, muscle therapist and media manager. They have also taken a nutritionist, high performance development manager, a second video analyst, a second media manager, a PA and Grant Fox, who is a selector but doesn't normally travel with the team.

The justification for taking the larger staff is partly because they can. World Rugby are willing to pay for 20 places so the All Blacks have concluded they should take full advantage of that.

It's also because it is the World Cup and the pressure on some areas of the team will be more intense than usual. The nutritionist wouldn't normally travel on an end-of-season tour. But the All Blacks could be away for more than seven weeks and it was deemed important to have Katrina Darry on hand to ensure the players were on top of their diet.

With media interest in the All Blacks expected to be huge, a second media manager was a reasonable call, as was a second video analyst.

They pore over video footage looking for clues as to where they might be weak or what cues they can detect to signal a specific move. The more video the players can consume, the better prepared they will be.

The All Blacks have many players who are back for a second or even third World Cup and it's the same with their backroom staff.