If rugby represents the best of New Zealand's egalitarian ideal, from a purely mathematics standpoint you'd expect a boy from an independent school to be a relative selection rarity in a NZ schools team. In the real world, 11 of the 26 boys named to this NZSS team attended independent schools.
Yes, well done you at the back, that's 42.3 per cent of the squad, coming from this small clique of moneyed institutions.
Okay, you say, wasn't it always thus? Haven't certain schools always been better than others at rugby? Haven't they always been better at attracting the best talent for that reason?
Well, sort of. There have always been strong schools, but they tended to be state schools. These are your Auckland Grammar, Christchurch Boys' High, Hamilton Boys' High type of schools.
Not now. If you add the five boys from state-integrated Catholic schools in this side, 16 come from schools where, even if you lived next door, you can't just send your child through the gates to receive an education - not without receiving communion or carrying a suitcase full of cash.
There are just two boys in the team who go to a state-funded co-ed schools: George Prain, an outlier from Rangiora High School, and Soane Vikena from Mt Albert Grammar.
Is there anything wrong with this?
Not from a selection point of view. St Kentigern dominates with five boys but evidently they were the class of the field this year, despite self-immolating in a shock Auckland 1A semifinal loss to St Peter's College (who are represented in this team by Niko Jones, the son of "God").
But it's awkward if we want keep up the pretence that rugby remains a game for all New Zealanders. A reliable source told me that when St Kentigern played King's College this year, more than 20 of the starting 30 players came from outside Auckland. The source hazarded a guess that few of them, if any, were full fee-paying.
Think about that for a minute.
We have long been accustomed to wealthy schools raiding low-decile Auckland schools for talent, but this points to a much larger talent-scouting footprint. There is also something deeply ironic about a school effectively paying for rugby talent to use the 1st XV as a marketing shop window to attract fee-paying students who are then subsequently locked out of, or face significant obstacles, on the route to their own rugby glory by the next influx of recruits.
NZ Rugby are aware of this ever-increasing plutocracy but are faced with a delicate balancing act. On the one hand they continue to laud the 1st XV production line that keeps churning out professional-grade talent, while on the other turning a blind eye to the glaring inequities of that system.
In plain sight clubs are dead, dying or merging because schools are failing to keep kids in the game. At many of these schools you are either on the pathway to professionalism or a road to nowhere. There is little in between.
It is killing rugby as a recreational pursuit.
In figures just released, NZ Rugby pointed to a small uptick in participation numbers but this is fueled almost entirely by the rise of women's rugby. They are actually suffering a significant downturn in males aged 13 to 20, a 4.8 per cent drop.
The professionalised nature of schoolboy rugby has played a huge role in that.
NZ Rugby desperately wants to get a measure of control into secondary schools rugby. School principals are just as adamant that rugby administrators should have no influence within their grounds.
It shapes as the most pivotal battle in the code's recent history; it's really that fundamental to rugby's future health.
The problem is, NZ Rugby have not actually said what secondary school rugby should look like.
Now would be a good time to start.
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A doff of the cap to Andrew Alderson who used his new role on the valve radio to highlight the simpering actions of sports administrators who have taken to hiding behind empty press releases.
Triathlon New Zealand CEO Mark Elliott is the latest to hastily exit stage left without taking a curtain call and answering questions.
His departure at the end of this month was announced via a media release sent out after 9pm on a Monday night.
Given his role is entirely taxpayer funded you would think it is incumbent upon somebody in that organisation to take questions but this type of behaviour is becoming par for the increasingly rocky course of high-performance sport in this country.
Rowing, cycling and football bosses have also been information deficient when refusing to elaborate on recent high-profile departures.
Ironic really when they sit at the top of programmes that demand their best athletes "front up" time and time again.
Just more evidence perhaps, that sport is breaking.
THE MIDWEEK LONG READ ...
In a racially charged moment in America's history, does Tiger Woods have a unifying role to play? From The Undefeated.
This is a fun oral history from Deadspin. Still doesn't compare to Paul Solotaroff's seminal feature on the same scene from Men's Journal.
