All Black great Colin Meads fears the inactive All Blacks and the Wallabies are underdone and have relinquished their edge to northern hemisphere rivals.

Meads, a lock for the All Blacks from 1957 to 1971 and later an All Blacks manager, said no lead-up matches could prove costly for the Wallabies and New Zealand ahead of next month's rugby showpiece.

Meads said modern players were too often wrapped in cotton wool when they needed to play regularly.

"I have a worry with the All Blacks - that is, they're not playing," Meads told AAP from New Zealand.

"The Aussies aren't playing either - they're all in camps and that sort of thing.

"In my day if you didn't play every week, it felt like you were starting the season all over again.

"When the World Cup starts, I think it's going to be eight or nine weeks since they last played and to me, they've got it all wrong.

"The northern hemisphere teams are all playing and New Zealand and Australia are not playing and I think they should be.

"It's a southern hemisphere tournament and it's meant to suit us better than the northern hemisphere nations so from that point of view I think we've got it a little bit wrong."

Meads conceded there was a risk of injury from teams playing extra warm-up games.

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