Rennie details All Blacks’ plan to tackle calf injuries

All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie has revealed what his side is doing differently to combat their calf injury problem, which has impacted several players during the 2026 season.

Patrick Tuipulotu, Jordie Barrett, Richie Mo’unga, and Samisoni Taukei’aho have all missed time with calf problems, which for some will seem unlucky, while others will lean towards a load management problem.

Taukei’aho will miss the remainder of the 2026 international season after picking up his calf injury while defending a Wallabies rolling maul.

Tuipulotu, who featured heavily during the gruelling eight-week tour of South Africa, didn’t fully recover in time to become selectable for Rennie and the coaching staff ahead of the Nations Championship finals.

Rennie told media in Auckland on Tuesday that Tuipulotu has just started to run, but is yet to get through any contact work post South African tour.

When asked about the lingering calf issues, Rennie admitted they have made some changes.

“Yeah, look, I mean, a lot of the collision-type injuries you can’t do much about,” Rennie said at their Auckland hotel.

“You look at Ardie’s situation, Billy Proctor, Caleb Clarke, they all had shoulder injuries, and so that’s just part of the nature of the game.

“We had a few calves over the last couple of weeks, and so we’ve looked carefully at our loading for guys who are away from us for a couple of weeks, and then coming back in.”

Rennie said that he won’t stop making his players train at the intensity required to play Test rugby, but will have to manage and adjust the loading.

“We need to train at an intensity and play at the intensity we want to play it, so we’re just looking carefully at that.

“All the guys who are away from us had GPS, so we got an idea of exactly these sort of programs they’re supposed to do, and the boys nailed those programs.

“We just got to make sure that we get our loading right too. So not all necessarily just dealt to us. It’s we’re just trying to work out why we had you know five or six calves.”