Chris Rattue: Global rugby season the biggest sports con job

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen (right) and Steve Tew.

Here's a phrase most of us could quite happily never hear again: Global Rugby Season.

There's as much chance of solving global warming as getting the rugby world united or in sync.

The GRS scenario is among the biggest cons in world sport, and the player welfare concern is not the priority rugby bosses pretend it to be because their actions don't match the words.

In fact the NZRU's blatant policy maximises the season workload (and accompanying travel) then compensates by resting key players now and then, while the rank and file test players get smashed to pieces. (For instance, Super Rugby has gone from 11 to 18 rounds since 1996.)

This is despite protests from all quarters, including the All Blacks' coach Steve Hansen. Nothing will sound sweeter than the final whistle in Dublin on Monday, ending another exhausting season.

At least NZRU boss Steve Tew was honest when he all but shot the GRS concept down during the latest "high-level" IRB meetings, where the subject is on the agenda.

I'm not sure what high level means - perhaps they slurp on a finer vintage, while plotting new forms of scrum disasters.

There will never be a true global rugby season, as league achieved when Europe switched to a summer professional game. A united rugby season can work only one way: the northern mob has to concede because summer footy in the south is impossible - it would be too tough on the ambulance stretcher-bearers.

But Captain Cook didn't float all the way south to set up Little England in order for the colonies to boss THE Rugby Football Union about. Bye bye the ultimate GRS, so we'll be left with tinkering. The GRS debate has little to do with the season length. The real power already lies with the NZRU, which actually keeps making the seasons tougher.

Sanzar adds games and teams to its comps like an anonymous networker compiling fake Facebook friends, and the money-hungry NZRU chimes in by stabbing pins on its war room maps marking Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.

Here's a little plan. Quit sending the All Blacks on northern missions every year and scrap the commercial operations dressed up as tests. Then take the Super comp seriously, to fill our stadiums with local fans.

First red card ... maybe

Hey, none of us are perfect. But here goes ... veteran rugby commentator and latter-day product spruiker Grant "Nisbo" Nisbett has a problem with player identification. It's been going on for a while and he made more errors at the latest Twickenham test. Maybe age has taken its toll. I raise this issue with due respect to Nisbo's many years of smooth and professional (if cliche-heavy) commentary.

Second red card ... definitely

Whatever the future for Ricki Herbert, it should have nothing to do with New Zealand soccer. His defensive, regimented time has come and he lacks charisma or the will to inspire the necessary change.

The game needs a large broom through it, allowing a new mantra obsessed with intricate skill and soccer imagination to take over. A radical approach is essential.

I'd start by declaring some of our over-matched age grades a lost generation and remove them from international competitions to emphasise the new deal.

There has been an overly sentimental rearguard response in some quarters in favour of Herbert, perhaps rightly for his role as player and coach. He deserves a good salute, but that should not prevent realistic appraisal of his work (and idiotic ravings from Mexico), nor de-rail what must come next.