Kaino 'leading with actions'

Kaino has achieved a lot with the All Blacks since making his debut in the famous black jersey in 2004. He has two World Cup winners medals as well as a host of Tri-Nations and Rugby Championship accolades as well.

With all this success, Kaino is imparting some of his rugby knowledge and experiences to the likes of Rieko Ioane, Liam Coltman, Damian McKenzie and Anton Lienert-Brown, who are all still uncapped.

With only one or two caps to their names, Kane Hames, Liam Squire, Elliot Dixon, James Parsons and Seta Tamanivalu are also feeding off Kaino's experience.

"A lot of how we do things in the All Blacks hasn't changed much, with the standards and values and how we want to play the game," Kaino told the Dominion Post.

"It's up to us [older hands] to try and get players up to speed around how we do things here.

"They're a little bit shy and standoff-ish, initially. Then you see them once they get their confidence and once they get an understanding of how we operate in the team, then they really come out of their shell and that's what we want.

"The new players we've got now, we really want them to feel comfortable as fast as possible and to get to grips with All Black life."

Kaino added: "We're not in their faces all the time, it's more leading with actions. 

"They see that and they see how you operate, they see how you do things around the environment on and off the field [and] for us that's a lot more important than barking at them and telling them what to do." 

Source: The Dominion Post