Gregor Paul: Inside NZ Rugby's lose-lose battle to retain talent

Sam Whitelock, Ardie Savea and Sam Cane of the All Blacks look on during The Rugby Championship match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Argentina Pumas. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

OPINION:

Nearly 30 years ago, rugby threw itself at the mercy of the free market, rushing headlong into professionalism with the certainty the brave new world of open payment for the players would be better than the old one where cash was shoved in shoe boxes and left in lockers.

Professionalism has indeed been the better world and the system has served the players, some of whom have seen their salaries leap to 30-times the average national wage, and it has served those investors brave enough and bold enough to chuck their money around as there has been - certainly in France and Japan - a correlation between expenditure and success.

This was always the plan – that players would follow the money and the only regulation of the labour market would be the natural force of supply and demand.

For almost 30 years the global game managed to maintain a balance of sorts: players have been pulled in enough directions to ensure that the labour hasn't pooled too heavily in one market at the expense of another.

But for how much longer can this equilibrium be maintained? How long before New Zealand really can't keep its best players for more than a few seasons because the lure of the Yen becomes impossible to resist?

It won't be long at all, because New Zealand Rugby already has its finger in the dyke. In 2019 it had to overspend – it effectively borrowed from future earnings - to sign Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock and Beauden Barrett on four-year deals, but all three came with a sabbatical clause that allowed them to play in Japan.

This hasn't turned out to be a one-off, though, as Patrick Tuipulotu was granted a similar contract in 2020 and now Ardie Savea and Jordie Barrett have, too. Richie Mo'unga is in discussions about spending time in Japan and with Rieko Ioane only having signed until the end of next year, his future could lie offshore – either temporarily or permanently.

These agreements are sold as a win-win, but it has proven deceptively hard for players to assimilate when they come back to New Zealand and a body of evidence has built to say these short-term deals are disruptive and not mutually beneficial.

NZR is not winning in granting these deals. It is paying more for less and we have reached the point where too many players will be in Japan – albeit temporarily – and everyone will be kidding themselves that the national body is continuing to win the battle to retain talent.

The time is coming, if it hasn't already, when the All Blacks will be adversely and obviously impacted by the level of concession NZR is having to make.

And beyond doubt is that this policy damages Super Rugby – hacks away great chunks of credibility, not to mention the value of the investments its private equity partners have made.

The argument for persevering with the so-called sabbatical clause is that it is a smart mechanism to keep the best players available for the All Blacks, and there doesn't appear to be any other protective tool to ward off rich predators.

NZR has tried in the past to persuade Government – both Labour and National – to introduce tax incentives for All Blacks who stay in New Zealand.

Neither side of the aisle has felt that rugby players earning close to $1 million a year would be seen as deserving recipients of generous tax relief.

The only other options open to NZR are high risk. It could challenge its reluctance to test the true strength of the All Blacks' allure and tell those players who want to experience life offshore, "Here's a great offer to stay that doesn't include a sabbatical. If that's not for you, thanks for everything and goodbye".

Ardie Savea of the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

There is the yet higher-risk option of doing what was once unthinkable and amending the eligibility criteria to allow players to head offshore and still play for the All Blacks.

That's not so much a protective measure as a last resort and what NZR must hope for is that some kind of socialist ethos finds traction in a sport which is currently feeling the full force of capitalism as if it were a Jerry Collins tackle.

Two big clubs in England have gone bust and a third is apparently going to soon reveal it too is in deep financial strife.

Australia is surviving on high-interest debt until it can land what it hopes will be the first of three bumper pay-days when the British & Irish Lions tour in 2025, and New Zealand is barely clinging on to the labour force that drives almost all its income.

What's apparent, with so many distressed balance sheets around the world and private equity crawling all over the sport, is that many territories have been living beyond their means and that the global game needs an economic reset and a commitment from the vanity owners of French clubs and the corporate titans who run things in Japan, to do their bit in lowering wage inflation.

The likes of the Kobe Steelers and Suntory Sungoliath are paying close to $2m a time to lure top All Blacks for a season, not because they have to, but because they can.

It's their right to flex their financial muscle however they like, but it is hard to understand how Japanese clubs are justifying the prices they pay to snatch All Blacks on one-season deals.

Part of the reason so many All Blacks are looking to negotiate sabbatical clauses now, is that they probably fear this gold rush will soon dry up – that the Japanese will wake up to the fact they may be squandering cash, paying massively over the odds for players who don't desperately want to be there, but who do desperately want to give Super Rugby a swerve.

The greater danger, however, is that the global game has lost its ability to balance itself. Clearly the English clubs have been living beyond their means and they can't compete with the Japanese.

Australia can't hold its players, South Africa definitely can't keep its players and New Zealand is pretending it can keep its players.

If nothing changes, it won't be long before market forces ensure that half the world's best players are pulled to France and the other half to Japan.

That world won't be better than the amateur one which got left behind in 1995.