A fantastic pathway that has evolved and been built on for over 100 years, and which has so many contributing factors to its success – from the little tots at the grass roots, through the secondary schools and clubs, and on to the great NZ system of provincial rugby academies, NPC teams, Super Rugby franchises, NZ U20s and the senior national teams.
Often people down play the success of the All Blacks, and dismiss it as a minority sport on the global stage, arguing that hardly any other major countries play it, or that we only do well because so many kids play it, and other sports in our country don't get a chance.
Well, aside from rugby being woven into the fabric of our society, its success is not as simple as that, its success is also down to some great development systems, for players and coaches.
A well-funded system too. Thanks to modern-day professionalism and broadcast rights, each region has an academy and development pathway, with paid professionals providing specific services for identified talent – strength and conditioning coaches, nutrition, psychology, profession life advisers, physiotherapy and, of course, professional coaching.
Most other sports are miles behind in terms of a pathway and system for their players, understandably too, with the funding gap that exists. But it's not all about the funds, and there is every opportunity to learn from the rugby system, and be as smart as possible with the resources we have for other sports.
And from a rugby perspective, as strong as the output currently is, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and if the underbelly of club and secondary school rugby ever falls over, it will be a long road to get it back, if ever.
Our greatest strength has always been our community of clubs and schools, our competitive advantage over other much bigger nations, and if we ever lose that, then we will just be reliant on cherry-picking the best few and developing them in professional ranks, just like every other country.
And probably what is more important than All Black success, we will have lost the wonderful community that we get from strong clubs and schools in every corner of the country.
In that regard, there are already major cracks appearing, with clubs battling to maintain the great numbers and community buzz of yesteryear, and for the schools it's even more alarming.
The school system is already a case of the "haves and have nots". Young players from the smaller and co-ed schools are being left high and dry, with the better players sucked out of their schools, attracted to the major boys' schools.
What's left is a void, with all the energy and community killed in those weaker rugby schools – thereby a whole layer of players who can't enjoy all the game has to offer, some of whom had the potential to come through as great, late-developing players.
For the good of the game, and all the young people who yearn to be involved, hopefully our school principals and others involved can find a way, so that all schools can maintain some talent and some enjoyable competitive teams to be involved in.
Ultimately if we can have more of a collective focus on development at the younger ages, not winning, then that mind shift itself will go some way to bringing about some change.
If not, then the lack of rugby in some schools provides an opportunity in other ways - a void for those schools to specialise in other alternative options, opening up exciting new development pathways for kids into other sports and providing quality experiences and quality athlete development support.
As a consequence, these kids would be able to be their best, represent their school, compete on an equal footing and have a realistic pathway to exciting higher representative honours in their new chosen code.
