The dust had hardly settled on the much-vaunted Restricted Training Activity (RTA) issue during the four Australian franchises' pre-season trials and now McKenzie is squaring up to the ARU over its apparent insistence to control the number of Super 14 games the players will be involved in.

With the Super 14 start just over a week away, McKenzie is still wary that ARU officials and the Wallabies management will try to pull players from Super 14 games.

The Waratahs coach, however, is adamant it is not their place to interfere.

"I think they are still looking to reserve some right to control players, whether they play or don't play, based on fatigue and things like that," McKenzie told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"We still haven't bought into that. We think we should be trusted to manage the workloads of players. There is plenty of good evidence that we have done that in the past. I don't see why we have to create some artificial environment. We are quite capable of managing that situation.

"We have all agreed we want the same thing. We all want fit players at the same time. We want them fit in the middle of the year. And if they are fit in the middle of the year, they can move on and do well in the World Cup. We just need to let people do their jobs."

McKenzie reiterated his fear that pulling players from Super 14 games, and thus failing to field the best possible sides, might diminish the Super 14 product.

He recently spoke with the Herald of his belief that the New Zealanders may have already done so by banning their top 22 All Blacks from the first seven rounds.

"It is an important brand," he said.

"It's an important product in the Australian rugby scene. We have to be careful that we don't diminish that along the way."