Shields shows Super Rugby players can represent other test teams
If it was Samoa or Tonga or the United States or Canada that were hoping to select Brad Shields this June, New Zealand Rugby would have already said yes. But it is England that want to pick Shields, and that changes everything as far as NZR are concerned.
England are a direct threat. England, despite their recent collapse in form, are genuine contenders to win next year’s World Cup. England with Brad Shields will be a better team.
And England are . . . well, they are England and hackles get raised, toes get dug in and attitudes turn defiant in this part of the world when the good chaps at Twickers want anything.
The thing is, though, England’s conviction they can select Shields is not based on any misplaced sense of entitlement. It is based on a valid reading of World Rugby’s governing charter that all players have to be
released during the respective international windows.
England are doing no wrong in selecting Shields.
They are not contravening any laws or agreements and are rightly assuming that World Rugby will support them in their belief New Zealand have no legal grounds to stop the Hurricanes flanker from beginning his test career against South Africa in June.
England, hands down, are going to
win this one. Shields will play in June and NZR are going to regret suggesting they may block the move.
NZR chief executive Steve Tew has softened his “over my dead body” stance of Thursday — saying yesterday they will now give due consideration to the request and factor in the long and loyal service of Shields.
His insistence that if they do release Shields, it will be because they want to rather than they have to, rubs salt into a self-inflicted wound. NZR
continues to believe they are not subject to World Rugby’s regulation nine on player release.
That’s for others to worry about, said Tew, and not valid in New Zealand, where the national body is labouring under the misapprehension that they can restrain players’ rights to play for a team other than the All Blacks.
They can’t. World Rugby knows it. Other nations know it. Player agents know it and now, it seems, NZR
know it.
Hinting they will back down is an admission they are powerless to control which country contracted players can commit to.
What will hurt more is the national body will no longer be able to demand players sign a document that says they will only be New Zealand-eligible to hold a Super Rugby contract.
How much of a barrier Schedule Three — the waiver that Super Rugby players sign to say they will only be
New Zealand-eligible — has been to individuals committing to other countries is impossible to know.
But following the case with Shields, it won’t be any barrier at all and dual qualified players will in the future be able to commit to Super Rugby clubs in New Zealand knowing they don’t have to choose the All Blacks.
It might, therefore, have been best had the NZR never said anything, because really at the source of their initial objection was pettiness. Shields is going to be playing for England in November anyway.
He will leave the Hurricanes when their campaign finishes and join Wasps.
And given England’s biggest weakness in the recent Six Nations was their work at the breakdown and their lack of pace and presence in the loose forwards, Jones is eager to bring Shields into his selection mix.
He was resigned to waiting until November as the Rugby Football Union have a policy of selecting only players based in England, but they have allowed him dispensation to pick Shields in June.
NZR took the view that England may well be getting their hands on Shields later this year, but they can wait until then. Why do them any favours and let them have Shields earlier?
In a high performance world where little things like that matter, especially with the All Blacks due in London in early November, maybe that’s a reasonable stance.
But the true cost of picking this fight has been to highlight to the world that New Zealand can’t impose an eligibility clause in Super Rugby contracts.