New Zealand coach Anthony Hudson has revealed that he is trying to keep things simple in terms of training.
The Englishman believes that this may help the New Zealand team in the World Cup qualifiers during a busy period. New Zealand will be taking on Solomon Islands in back-to-back World Cup qualifiers in September. The national team gets its players from across the world. As the new campaign has just begun in Europe and most parts of the world, players will have witnessed a few weeks of top-level action already.
In addition to the tiredness, any jet lag associated with the lot of travelling in order to get back to New Zealand may cause adverse effects to the players in these two matches, according to Hudson. As a result, he is trying to take away any pressure from the players and to reduce their intensity in the training. These changes are expected to have their difference in the upcoming games, which are must win for New Zealand.
After coming on the back of five consecutive defeats, New Zealand will find it difficult to qualify for the World Cup if they have a poor match in the first leg. Fatigue is one of the biggest problems for New Zealand, and the national team has already lost the likes of Tommy Smith and Winston Reid due to injury coming into the game.
“We’ve got players playing over in Europe on Sunday and Monday our time, then they get on flights and they’ll be arriving Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon, some on Wednesday, and the game is on a Friday. When you have that scenario of such little time and jetlag you have to be super prepared and have an idea of your starting XI before them come in because there is no time to assess players and see where they’re at,” said Hudson.