Eligibility change would kill ABs
Gregor Paul
The decision to award every national rugby team All Blacks status has inflicted considerable damage on one of the world’s great sporting brands. If New Zealand Rugby’s next act is to change their stance on eligibility criteria and pick players based offshore, they really will kill the All Blacks.
A brand which hauled in $250 million last year will suddenly struggle to make half of that and within 10 to 15 years, Scotland, Argentina and probably Georgia will all have claimed their first victories against the All Blacks.
Changing the policy — a suggestion from outgoing New Zealand Rugby general manager Neil Sorensen — would be an unforgivably bad decision with catastrophic consequences.
It would instantly tell the mad men in charge of French clubs they now have all the power.
And these man men don’t care much for test football. If they could wipe it off the face of the earth, they would be quite happy. At the moment, NZR has an equal amount of power, if not anywhere near as much money, because the All Blacks’ current selection policy means the biggest clubs can’t waltz in to New Zealand and sign who they like.
It drives them nuts that they can offer Beauden Barrett four times as much money to leave and yet here he is, happy as a sand boy because he has the one thing money can’t buy — selection in the All Blacks.
If NZR changes its stance on eligibility, it would concede defeat. The message would be clear: “We give up, come and help yourselves to whoever you like, but please, give us Beaudy back once in a while so he can haul his carcass into a black jersey.”
When that happens, NZR will have no clout, no respect and no ability to be taken seriously. New Zealand will be a glorified academy for the vanity products of rich men.
The All Blacks have been successful for so long because they have never given an easy inch in more than 100 years. The world is fascinated by that. It gives the All Blacks mystery and mystique. It makes them worth learning about and enables them to garner interest from around the world, which is ultimately what their entire brand is built on.
Sponsors love the story, the power of the brand and the unique proposition.
Those who say it is inevitable the All Blacks selection policy will have to change should look at the Wallabies and Springboks, who both reached that same conclusion. They amended their national selection policies in recent years to allow offshore players to be picked and not only has it not helped them win more, but they are both barely surviving financially. They are losing their place to the rising power of England and the Celts and may never be able to get it back.
That could be New Zealand if they go down the same track — a once mighty rugby nation earning only the world’s pity. Not everyone sees this though. The issue of eligibility has become entwined with debate about progressive versus regressive.
The last few years have provided painful evidence of the outdated values and thinking that pervade New Zealand’s rugby fraternity. At an institutional level, NZR has been exposed for its lack of gender and ethnic diversity. It has appeared to be an organisation behind the times.
NZR needs to modernise and reform and the progressives argue that amending the eligibility criteria would be clear evidence of innovative thinking: of accepting things have changed and the All Blacks are being repositioned to thrive in a new world.
By implication, those who predict a doomsday scenario are branded as clinging to a forgotten age. The progressives say there is no better evidence of a male, pale, stale executive than persisting with a protectionist stance in a free world.
But All Blacks eligibility isn't an issue to define modernity or lead transition, it is something to be left well alone, for to change it now will be the end of everything.