The All Blacks will be forced to spend Christmas Day in managed isolation, after confirmation of the Rugby Championship draw sees them scheduled to play their final game on December 12.
SANZAAR has confirmed the draw for the tournament, which begins on November 7 and ends in mid-December, with the All Blacks facing Australia in their first and last games.
But the scheduled means All Blacks players and staff face Christmas Day in quarantine, due to New Zealand's two-week COVID-19 isolation rules.
Reports over the last few weeks suggest some players are unhappy to travel and be apart from their families during Christmas, including Beauden Barrett, whose wife is due to give birth to the couple's first child any day now.
NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson has come out swinging, insisting this schedule was never approved and his organisation would speak to SANZAAR about alternatives.
"We were working on the understanding, and all our planning and scheduling was on the basis that the All Blacks' last match would be on December 5 to give our players and management time to get home, undertake the 14 days' quarantine back in New Zealand, and then be with their families for Christmas, as will be the case for the other three teams in the tournament," he says.
"We understand the commercial considerations in the scheduling. However, the wellbeing of our people is an incredibly important factor in this also.
"We are committed to playing in the Rugby Championship, and we know the scheduling of matches has been a complex and dynamic issue to work through, especially with quarantine protocols, but we haven't agreed to this schedule and are disappointed at the announcement."
NZ Rugby is determined to find an alternative, so the All Blacks can play their final game before December 6 and complete quarantine before Christmas Day.
"We're looking at a range of options, and we'll keep working with Rugby Australia and SANZAAR on those," says Robinson.
"We need to... have a conversation with people and management to see where this sits with them, and go from there.
"We've got some principles that we're working towards and we're committed to playing these games. We're talking about one game in this schedule of 12 games.
"South Africa and Argentina need to play that tournament over six weeks, and there is no issue with that. They have players coming from over the world and little rugby, and they need to play across that window, so they are not majorly impacted by what we're talking about here.
"It's far too early to know that the solutions or possible outcomes are. We're going to take time to work through that and take things from there."
When asked if NZ Rugby would consider boycotting the December 12 fixture, Robinson did not rule out that prospect.
The Rugby Championship schedule is:
Saturday, November 7 - Argentina v South Africa, Australia v NZ at Brisbane
Saturday, November 14 - NZ v Argentina, South Africa v Australia at Sydney
Saturday, November 21 - NZ v South Africa, Australia v Argentina at Sydney
Saturday, November 28 - Argentina v Australia, South Africa v NZ at Newcastle
Saturday, December 5 - Argentina v NZ, Australia v South Africa at Sydney
Saturday, December 12 - South Africa v Argentina, Australia v NZ
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