LONG READ All Blacks need an Anzac Day Test with the Wallabies to stiffen resolve for World Cup tilt

New Zealand Rugby is expected to shortly agree that the All Blacks will play an historic Bledisloe Cup Anzac Test in April next year.

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The concept of playing a Test to commemorate the events of 1915 when troops from Australia and New Zealand suffered heavy losses in Gallipoli, has been pushed since 2024.

Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh has been the driver, with the potential fixture interesting him for three reasons.

Mid-April is a relatively quiet time in the crowded Australian football calendar, with the NRL and AFL barely underway, and it’s a window for rugby to grab the sporting imagination.

Secondly, a regular Anzac fixture would extend the Bledisloe series to three Tests and, arguably, make it easier for the Wallabies to win it back.

Under the current two-Test format, the Wallabies need to win both – one at home and one in New Zealand. Shift to three Tests and they would still need to win two, but in alternate years, they would play two at home.

Thirdly, he’s got money being thrown at him by various state governments to bring the All Blacks, and between incentive payments and ticket sales, Australia and New Zealand could split a total pot of about $12m if they play an Anzac Test next year.

When the idea was first mooted two years ago, NZR said no. Former chief executive Mark Robinson told the Sydney Morning Herald: “When we have gone and spoken to various groups, be it the Super Rugby clubs, the players association and various partners, we don’t see it as viable, at this stage.”

But the concept now has traction, partly because new NZR chief Steve Lancaster likes the idea, for what it will deliver to fans, generate financially and most importantly, what it will do to improve the relationship between New Zealand and Australia.

The two nations have not always seen eye to eye over the last two decades – voting against one another to host World Cups, sparring over the strategic direction of Super Rugby and jousting over how to split broadcast revenue.

The last two years have been relatively harmonious, but Lancaster wants that bond to be tighter.

We understand in our discussions with RA that they see the Bledisloe as a significant event, which they can market every year or every other year, at a time when it is relatively clear in terms of other codes, they can build on that.

Steve Lancaster, NZR Chief Executive

“A big focus for me is relationships with our key partners,” says Lancaster. “We have some significant commercial partners who are critical to us.

“We have got a partner in the Rugby Players’ Association, a partner in Sky and partners in other national unions. Rugby Australia, as the other major union in the Southern Hemisphere is a critical partner.

“We want them to be successful – not when it comes to winning the Bledisloe Cup – but everything other than that. We want rugby to be prominent in Australia, to be commercially viable, to be a well-supported and well participated sport.

“We understand in our discussions with RA that they see the Bledisloe as a significant event, which they can market every year or every other year, at a time when it is relatively clear in terms of other codes, they can build on that.

“That’s good for them and it is good for us, and it is good for Super Rugby because we can build it as a package of rugby at that time of year.”

But the other big driver to saying yes to a Test match in April is the arrival of Dave Rennie, and his desire to beef up and almost radicalise the All Blacks’ preparation for next year’s World Cup.
Agreeing to a Test in April will present multiple challenges to players and coaches alike. It’s fair to say, that players who tour the UK and Europe in November with the All Blacks typically take their time to get back into form in Super Rugby the following year.

Some of that has been because of enforced protocols where they don’t start training with their respective teams until close to the season start, and they have had restrictions imposed on how many minutes they can play in the first three weeks.

If there is a Test after eight rounds of Super Rugby next year, anyone wanting to be picked is going to have to prove their case, and that means they are also going to have to retain a high degree of conditioning over the off-season, summer break.

For the coaches, a Test in April will present a tricky but welcome preparation assignment of getting players ready so early in the season and in what will be a tight training window.

Staying fit over the off-season may seem like a low benchmark for well-paid professionals, but not every high-profile player has done it in the past – most notably Julian Savea in 2015 who had to spend three weeks conditioning during the Rugby Championship that year.

For the coaches, a Test in April will present a tricky but welcome preparation assignment of getting players ready so early in the season and in what will be a tight training window.
It will also enable the team to spend time at one of the bases they will likely use at the World Cup.

But what it will really do intensify the preparation, firstly by throwing a new and untried challenge into the mix of playing a Test in April.

It’s never been done, so Rennie will be looking to see which players can get into form quickly and deal with the untried task of transitioning from Super Rugby to a Test back to Super Rugby.

The other intensifying element is that it will elongate the season and increase the number of Tests the All Blacks play before the World Cup to eight. Typically, they have only played five Tests before the tournament.

Potentially, if they make the semi-finals, the All Blacks will play 15 Tests next year. As a comparison, the final in 2023 was their 12th of the year, as it was in 2015 and 2011 when they also reached the final.

The number of pre-tournament games is going to jump to eight because not only will there most likely be a Bledisloe fixture in April, but the later start to the World Cup – it kicks off in early October as opposed to the usual early-mid September start – means a full Rugby Championship will be played (in previous World Cup years it has been truncated to one round).

Talks are also progressing for Scotland to play the All Blacks in Dunedin after the Rugby Championship, and Rennie seems determined to put his players through a significantly longer and tougher World Cup build-up than his predecessors.

Rennie can see that to get through that massively challenging assignment of beating South Africa and France in consecutive weeks and then playing a final – he’s going to need every member of his squad to be battle-hardened.

Two Tests against South Africa, two versus Argentina, three against Australia and one against Scotland across a near six-month span is a robust schedule by any standards and the question is whether it will make or break the All Blacks?

Rennie clearly feels it will make them and that he’s looked at the World Cup draw and seen that the All Blacks face a potential quarter-final against the Boks if everything goes to rankings, and then, if they find a way to win that, a semi-final against France.

His predecessor, Scott Robertson, who was still in the job when the draw was made last December, said: “We play South Africa a lot and it’s [potentially] another time to have a crack at it.
“You’re going to have to face someone with their form to win it. The quarter-final – if that’s the way it works out, then it’s just part of the draw. You have to embrace it.”

Rennie can see that to get through that massively challenging assignment of beating South Africa and France in consecutive weeks and then playing a final – he’s going to need every member of his squad to be battle-hardened.

And that’s the beauty of an April Test and then another seven before the tournament, plus relatively light pool encounters against Chile and Hong Kong China – it gives him inventory with which he can manage and share player workload, as well as experiment tactically.

The attrition is going to be high, and so he clearly wants to mitigate against injury ahead of what is an undeniable focal point of the whole campaign – a quarter-final against the Boks.

Robertson may have had an “it is what it is” approach to that encounter, but Rennie is targeting it, knowing that it is going to be a monumental clash in the same way the 2023 quarter-final against Ireland was in 2023.

All roads lead to that one game and to beat the reigning world champions, the All Blacks will need a ruthless mindset – something that can be shaped and instilled by the toughness of their build up.
An Anzac Test plays into that and if the All Blacks can win that game, they will need a deep mental resolve to then front and win the semi-final.