Gregor Paul: The case for a sixth New Zealand Super Rugby team

Tupou Vaa'i runs through drills during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at Rugby park on September 22. Photo / Getty Images.

OPINION

Everyone is adamant New Zealand doesn't have the resources to support a sixth professional club.

Maybe that's true in regard to the finances – that if there was one more Super Rugby mouth to feed there wouldn't be enough to go around.

The broadcast money wouldn't stretch that far, fan bases would start cannibalising each other and sponsors would lower their investments as a result of excess choice.

But the reservation about expanding has been driven not by balance sheet concerns, but by a fear that New Zealand doesn't have the playing resources to successfully launch a sixth team.

The Aratipu Review, conducted during lockdown to assess future Super Rugby options, recommended against New Zealand creating a sixth team on the grounds that player depth is already stretched populating the existing five teams.

It would be interesting to know how that conclusion was reached because there is plenty of evidence to challenge its veracity, starting with, but by no means confined to the presence of Tupou Vaa'i in the current All Blacks squad.

Tupou Vaa'i and Hoskins Sotutu run through drills during a New Zealand All Blacks training session at Rugby park on September 22. Photo / Getty Images.

Vaa'i was not in the Chiefs squad when Super Rugby kicked off at the end of January.

Having not made a Super Rugby squad in 2020, Vaa'i was ranked no higher than 21st on the list of available locks in New Zealand.

He was called up by the Chiefs in June when they had an injury crisis and named in the All Blacks on September 6, which forces a few questions to be asked, starting with how did he manage to climb at least 17 places in the standings in such a short space of time?

He's not the only one to have started a season without a Super Rugby contract and ended it as an All Black.

Karl Tu'inukuafe, Angus Ta'avao and Kane Hames have done the same thing in recent years and alluded to there being a number of phenomenally talented, uncontracted players across New Zealand at any given time who are potentially test quality if only they could be given the chance to prove it.

Vaa'i might have been lucky in the sense that injuries to others opened a previously closed door, but he still had to be good enough to state his claim over a 10-week competition.

He still had to have the talent, the drive and application to shine and the fact that he's the fourth player in as many years to make such a meteoric rise to the All Blacks suggests New Zealand either has a talent identification problem or, that there are untold riches lurking in the semi-professional landscape and not enough contracts to house them all in Super Rugby.

Given the success of the All Blacks in the last decade and the quality of rugby consistently produced, we should rule out the possibility of New Zealand's Super Rugby talent identification being systematically flawed.

It's not perfect, because no system is, but it is not failing and the only way to explain the rags to riches journeys that Vaa'i and others make, is that supply currently exceeds demand.

Jack Goodhue and Angus Ta'avao battle it out during warm-up drills at the All Blacks training session. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

How many other Mitre 10 Cup players will be told in the next two months that they are not going to have a professional contract next year, yet are potentially just a few months of exposure in Super Rugby from proving they are good enough to play for the All Blacks?

The evidence would suggest many more than the Aratipu Review identified and that's probably because the report vastly underestimated the impact of opportunity.

When opportunity knocked in Australia, first with the creation of the Western Force and then the Rebels, they didn't have the depth of talent to capitalise.

It was the same in South Africa when an opportunity arose with the short-lived creation of the Southern Kings. They didn't have enough supply to fulfil demand.

But if there was a sixth professional team in New Zealand, there's a strong case to say it would be different and that there are plenty more players like Vaa'i, Tu'inukuafe, Ta'avao and Hames lurking within the uncontracted ranks.

Pre-Covid, certainly, many of New Zealand's rejected talent pool were taking off around the world. They missed out on Super Rugby, didn't want to wait around for injuries to others or for new coaches to arrive with a different perspective and so took up offers to play in France and Japan, but plenty went to Australia, too and would wash up in Super Rugby a few years later.

Maybe it wouldn't be an instant success, but there's enough reason to believe that if New Zealand were brave enough to create a sixth New Zealand Super Rugby team and be a little patient, it would become competitive and ultimately sustainable.