Numbers game is now a rugby crisis
New Zealand’s starting to show the signs of constant brawn drain
Avert your eyes from Super Rugby’s impending playoffs because it’s not all milk and honey in what many Kiwis believe is the true home of rugby.
The New Zealand under-20s team’s defeat to their South African counterparts and then, more shockingly, Wales in Argentina this week is more evidence of the challenge ahead for New Zealand Rugby and Steve Tew’s replacement as its boss.
If you start putting the pieces together and ignore the fact that four of the top eight Super Rugby teams are Kiwi sides, these are increasingly difficult times for the game here.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the All Blacks are not successful at the World Cup which starts in Tokyo in fewer than 100 days there will be serious questions asked about the direction and health of the game in New Zealand, which will include the alarming state of club rugby, especially in Auckland. Actually, they should be asked regardless because another All Black win could merely paper over the cracks.
Back to the under-20s; their 25-17 defeat to South Africa which knocked them out of the finals when a losing
bonus point was all they needed to progress was bad enough, but to follow it up with an 8-7 reverse to Wales ensures this is their worst world championship. They will play Ireland for seventh place tomorrow. The result is by no means a given.
It doesn’t take a genius to suggest the rest of the world has caught up to New Zealand in terms of its performances at this level.
The Six Nations under-20s sides have a big advantage now as they participate in their own competition, and the likes of France and England pour a huge amount of resources into those teams, and the more modest resources enjoyed by New Zealand means the bigger picture for this team is about getting players ready to slot straight into Super Rugby, and then the All Blacks, always the All Blacks.
And that’s probably the big issue that needs to be addressed. There’s no doubt the All Blacks are important for their legacy and who they can inspire. But there is a growing undercurrent which suggests New Zealand Rugby have focused on them at the expense of everything else, and particularly the grassroots game.
The pessimists will say that has now become obvious at a high performance level and point to the under-20s, who last won a world championship in 2017, as an obvious example. They owned the tournament when it started in 2008. Optimists may say the continued success of the All Blacks and inclusion of the Crusaders, Hurricanes, Chiefs and Highlanders in the Super Rugby playoffs suggest that is not the case.
But the day of reckoning could be coming and Auckland could be its ground zero.
There are player representatives who say talented secondary school kids from south and west Auckland have no interest in playing for the Blues, despite the fact these children may not have left Auckland in their lives.
There are other, more concrete, signs of failure. The Glenfield club’s premier team in the North Harbour competition have defaulted for the remainder of the season because they can’t attract enough players. Their premier 2 side arrived at North Shore’s Vauxhall Road ground last Saturday for a match with only 10 players. Three more arrived just before kick-off and the match went ahead. The result was a 113-0 final scoreline for North Shore. A North Shore members’ newsletter said: “There were no winners.”
These are worrying times and New Zealand Rugby will know it. The question is, what are they going to do about it? It’s the No 1 question for Tew’s successor.