A rugby reset worth seeing

New Zealand and the rest of the world have benefited a great deal, not only from the depth of Pacific Islands rugby talent but also its free-wheeling influence on the style of play in the global game.

Resets in rugby are tedious things that sap the energy, not only of those forwards ordered to set up for yet another scrum but also the poor fans forced to endure the sight of large, highly paid professionals standing around doing nothing.

Pacific resets are hardly more exciting, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars disappearing into a foreign policy pool very few of us will see, let alone get to swim in.

But Pacific rugby resets, they are potentially another thing altogether.

News that the Government has funded a feasibility study on setting up a Pacific Islands Super Rugby franchise is exciting and timely.

For one it potentially resets what, for many Kiwi sports fans, has been an unfair relationship and near-injustice lasting too many years.

New Zealand and the rest of the world have benefited a great deal, not only from the depth of Pacific Islands rugby talent but also its freewheeling influence on the style of play in the global game.

Rugby without that influence would be a much less enjoyable and marketable product. And the All Blacks brand would also not have the same impact or reach.

Many Pacific Island players may have done well from the exporting of that talent around the world, but the island game has seen little from the exploitation of its great gift, particularly at a national level, where countries such as Samoa struggle to pay their test representatives.

It is insightful that news of the Government’s involvement in the study should come when it is working on a substantial reset of its own relationship with the islands, and that the study was driven by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

New Zealand’s foreign service is set to reap a Budget boost of close to $200 million over the next four years, and the islands are to get a sizeable slice of that, as well as an increase in foreign aid.

This follows concerns here and across the Tasman about the growing influence of other nations in the area, particularly China, and the rise of ‘‘chequebook diplomacy’’ in the form of loans and the building of key infrastructure.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has talked at length about that influence and New Zealand’s need to counter it, although he has been cautious about highlighting any one country.

Our own chequebook cannot compete with those waved around by other nations. The $80,000 for the feasibility study is small in comparison with the Government’s overall budget in the Pacific. It has not indicated whether there will be more financial support, should the Super Rugby governing body agree to bring a Pacific Islands team into the competition from 2021.

It will be interesting to see how far the Government goes to support a sporting franchise based outside its borders.

But this initial support remains an important practical step and symbolic gesture in an area experiencing the influence and pressure of soft power and geo-political scrummaging. And it is just a fraction of the support the islands deserve for the contribution they have made to our national game and its continuing global dominance.