Sport
Global warning
by Paul Lewis
Selecting overseas-based players is a matter of time.
It speaks volumes when a sport faces such a crisis that it can only judge which course will damage it the least.
But that’s rugby, New Zealand-style, a fact made clear in a recent interview with All Blacks coach Graham Henry in which he once again plumped for the status quo in non-selection of overseas-based players.
This issue has cracked on for years, but it has gathered pace recently as more New Zealand rugby players take advantage of the huge money on offer in the northern hemisphere.
Henry’s call on the selection of New Zealand-based players was tinged with snarkiness when he also commented that he didn’t know if Luke McAlister, a well-performed All Black, would be a better player when he returned from playing for Sale in the UK.
“I think it [selecting overseas players] decreases the value of New Zealand rugby,” Henry said. “It will decrease the quality of the game that is played here … And I think it would decrease the interest in the game and the money from television. I agree with the current situation.”
Hold on just a cotton-picking minute. Anyone who has watched the Super 14 and, in particular, the Air NZ Cup over the past two years has proof that the quality of the game has already lessened here.
Why? Because so many players – the figure has been put at 250 – have left these shores to play professional rugby overseas. That is more than are playing professional rugby here.
Player drain? More like a flood. Many of those 250 are not of All Blacks standard. But many are, or could be in the future.
The status quo proponents, like Henry, make the not unreasonable point that to allow the All Blacks selectors to choose overseas-based players would open the floodgates. All and sundry would head off, thanks to the exotic chequebooks of European rugby clubs.
They’re right, of course. But there must come a time when critical mass tips over in the delicate balance between those playing overseas and those left here, and when the absence of quality has bitten so deep that the game is in peril from indifference and boredom.
What the NZRU and Henry are really worried about is control. Once selection of overseas players is allowed, the players’ availability to play for the All Blacks could be affected by their paymasters – the European clubs.
That would be like the situation in rugby league, which leaves the international form of the game in limbo – the clubs can block the release of players for international duty using any excuse.
That’s the real issue. Yet what about this equation: All Blacks who can be selected from overseas at present = nil; versus All Blacks selected from overseas if the NZRU rules change = some. Surely it’s only a matter of time.
As for Henry’s seeming dismissal of the quality of McAlister’s northern hemisphere sojourn, the likely truth is that Henry sounded more brusque than he actually meant to be. It came across even worse because New Zealand rugby is pretty much barren at second five-eighths, with all due respect to Ma’a Nonu, who is devastating on his day but average when he’s not.
McAlister would likely waltz back into the All Blacks team if he was available. On the surface, Henry’s comment was a churlish barb at someone who deserted the All Blacks’ ship.
But McAlister never totally convinced in his brief career as an All Black. I always rated Aaron Mauger ahead of him as a distributor and reader of the game. (Although Henry tellingly selected McAlister for that fateful World Cup quarterfinal against France last year, McAlister’s mental toughness – like that of many of his teammates – was questioned.)
To be fair to Henry, he was also criticised for his brisk dismissal of Jerry Collins (saying he wouldn’t have been selected, anyway) when the tough Wellingtonian took off for France.
Subsequent events might have proved Henry right: Collins’ form in France for Tana Umaga’s Toulon side has, by all accounts, been only average. Perhaps Jolting Jerry’s style of play has caught up with his body a bit.
There are also some smart young midfield talents on the way up – Canterbury’s Tim Bateman, Wellington’s Tamati Ellison, Auckland’s Benson Stanley and Taranaki’s Jayden Hayward, to name a few. And who knows where McAlister will find himself if and when he returns.
