Gregor Paul: Champion Blues team only part of the puzzle for Auckland rugby

The success of the Blues has helped the wider Auckland rugby scene - but more is needed. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

With the Blues likely to push into the Super Rugby semifinals and the feted 1A competition producing a stream of potential next-level players, Auckland appears to be reclaiming its position as the national game's strongest base.

Looking back to 2013 when the city was labelled a problem by New Zealand Rugby, there's no doubt that the strategic plan, which was hatched to find more players and make Aucklanders fall back in love with the sport, has enjoyed a degree of success.

The Blues are largely a team of local lads. With the exception of Beauden Barrett, the star men – Rieko and Akira Ioane, Caleb Clarke, Hoskins Sotutu and Dalton Papalii – are Auckland born, bred and developed.

Most of their teammates are too and in the last few years the Blues have fostered a wider sense of pride in the region and built a deep, emotional connection with their jersey by having come to better understand who they are.

The transition has seen players go from being mildly embarrassed to be Aucklanders to now not only proud, but also certain of what that means.

One of the bigger problems the city faced even a few years ago was that the talent would roll off the 1A production line but not necessarily into the Blues.

In fact, there were times when it felt like the best kids in town would rather end up anywhere other than the Blues.

Reversing that trend and making the Blues the first-choice club for first XV players in Auckland has been a huge breakthrough and fixed a pathway that was obviously broken given the number of players in the last decade who were schooled in the city but became All Blacks playing for other Super Rugby clubs.

But it would be premature to celebrate or consider the city now a fully functional rugby entity.

The situation in Auckland, while much improved, is illustrative of the battle the game faces in trying to grow its participation numbers and a healthier community game.

The Blues squad has predominantly come from a small concentration of schools –Auckland Grammar, St Kentigern College, Sacred Heart, Mt Albert Grammar and St Peter's College.

For much of the last decade, the 1A has reflected a similar concentration of talent with St Peter's, MAGS, St Kentigern College, King's College, Auckland Grammar and Sacred Heart the dominant forces.

Kelston Boys, Dilworth School and De La Salle are challenging the top four this year, but the longer and real story of the 1A is that these schools only manage sporadic good years and that the trend has been the bigger schools becoming stronger, the smaller becoming weaker.

Which is largely the same story being experienced with clubs, and so while we may be seeing some good rugby played in the Premier grade, so too are we seeing more clubs struggling to field more than one senior team.

The school system is producing more and better equipped elite players, but the cost is a greater concentration of that talent in fewer institutions and fewer clubs, and more worryingly, a hard drop-off in the number of non-elite players who just want to enjoy a good game of rugby.

There were days where the best Auckland talent like Caleb Clarke ended up at other franchises. Photo / Photosport

If the millions of dollars about to be invested by Silver Lake are to be of value to the community game, then they need to be used to build a bridge between schools and clubs to ensure that more graduate from the former to the latter.

And this is why some are unconvinced that a US investment firm buying into the All Blacks is somehow going to fix the most pressing problem at the grassroots: money does not strike as the means to reverse this specific issue of narrow concentration and too much focus on the elite.

As the Herald has reported many times, the primary problem sits with a toxic, win-at-all-costs culture that has pervaded the 1A and seen some schools compromise their own values through aggressive recruitment policies.

Winning at most schools has been prioritised over participating and the number of teens playing rugby has fallen as a consequence. It hasn't helped either that many promising players are forced to over-commit at too young an age by agreeing to give up playing all other sports.

Perhaps, too, questions need be asked about the relationship between Auckland Rugby and their local schools.

Auckland had seven votes to cast at the Silver Lake vote on Thursday – the system giving them a heavier weighting based on the number of schools and registered players in the province.

Yet the Herald understands that schools were never consulted about how they would like Auckland to vote and this alludes to another key problem – which is one of jurisdiction and clarity of purpose.

Ask the question who runs and effectively owns schools rugby and there will be no uniform answer.

This confusion, combined with an element of patch protection has led to a lack of alignment and common goals and a diversity of opinion as to what success looks like.

Is success producing future All Blacks or is it turning out hundreds of willing club players? No one seems to know or agree.

A pot of money being available to the community game may in time prove to be useful, transformational even, but first, in Auckland at least, there needs to be an agreed plan between the schools and the union as to how they can work together to drive up participation and keep teenagers in the game for longer, while continuing to develop elite players.

Auckland is clearly not the troubled place of old, but a champion Blues team would not of itself indicate that everything is right.

Success will be a champion Blues team, a fully rather than partially competitive 1A, a lower drop-out rate of teens, more senior club teams and the development of the best and most vibrant female rugby programme in the country.