New Zealand team manager Darren Shand has revealed the All Blacks have been warned by rugby bosses over their off-field conduct and discipline in the build-up to the Tri Nations.
Shand’s admission comes after a Buenos Aires hotel manager branded members of the team difficult to control after a dispute over payments for rooms.
Augstan Goity, a representative of the Sheraton Hotel in the Argentinian capital, told The Sunday News: "It’s understood because we don’t know how hard it is to control the group.
"We know that they are young and it is difficult to control them.
"We were more or less happy with their behaviour but the only thing was that some players didn’t pay their room bills.
"The co-ordinator of the group had to come back to the hotel and check all their rooms at the end of the trip.
"The co-ordinator had to bring each one to the front desk to pay for their rooms because some were going out without paying."
Shand said: "It was felt everyone needed to be given a bit of a message.
"We always run a health check on where we are at. And I guess the management group felt we weren’t in great nick on that side of things and that everyone needed to be given a bit of message about the challenges we have ahead of us and what the landscape will be going forward.
"We have put the ‘Better people make better All Blacks’ policy out there quite a bit and that is something that doesn’t sit still.
"It’s something we have to keep addressing because the players live in an environment where there are a lot of pressures and a lot of temptations and we have to keep addressing that."
