Phil Gifford: The latest threat to international rugby

Wales George North. Photo / AP

Opinion:

International rugby has never faced, as Wales now does, the threat of a strike by players.

You can joke about the very idea. An old journalist friend in England sent a text saying, “Given their results so far this year, if the Welsh team go on strike, how could you tell?”

The Welsh players’ union says the dispute isn’t about money, it’s about uncertainty. But the uncertainty is actually about money. With four months to go until Welsh international and club contracts are due to be renewed, many players say they have no guarantee they will be resigned. At best there will be cuts in pay.

With a population of just over three million, Wales, like New Zealand, doesn’t have a massive group of potential customers to offer to broadcasters and sponsors. The Welsh union and the professional clubs are battling to stay afloat.

As New Zealand does, Wales has rules that basically mean you have to play for a Welsh club to represent Wales. There are exceptions for players with more than 60 test caps. Compared to the huge audiences available to England and France, paying world class Welsh players enough to keep them at home is a constant battle.

Crucially, the longer the Welsh national team struggles the harder corporate cash will be to get.

What’s different, and vital, for New Zealand rugby, is that the All Blacks are an iconic brand, which means big-money international companies want an association. Wales doesn’t have the brand recognition amongst non-rugby tragics in Japan or France that the All Blacks do.

If what’s happening in Wales seems too far away to be a concern, remember that the issue of money in rugby has been lurking in the shadows for New Zealand too, ever since professionalism dropped like a bomb in 1996.

Some Kiwis vehemently disagree, but New Zealand Rugby Union got it 100 percent right in ‘96, when they decided only New Zealand-based players can be picked for the All Blacks.

It’s a major factor in the All Blacks’ being the most successful test side in the professional era.

Yes, it would be great to have had, as a prime example, Charles Piutau, consistently rated the best fullback in the northern hemisphere jetting back from Bristol if the All Blacks wanted him. And at last count there were 17 former All Blacks playing in Europe, and at least another 60 players from New Zealand provincial or Super rugby.

It would be handy, in this World Cup year, to have some experienced players jetting back from France with hard-earned knowledge about the French players the All Blacks will face in the opening match of the Cup on September 8.

But talk to coaches of Pacific Island teams about how difficult it can be to get their test players back from France when they need them. “The thing is that some French club owners are ****holes,” a Pasifika coach once told me. “The problem for us is that they’re rich ****holes, and they pay well. The players don’t want to get offside with them.”

As an example of how differently player availability is organised in New Zealand, during a teleconference this week with Super Rugby coaches there was universal acceptance that the juggling of All Blacks’ appearances this World Cup year was no more difficult than it has been in the past.

The system here isn’t perfect, but at least there is a system, and some certainty for everyone involved. The All Black selectors and trainers get all the information they want from the Super camps, which would potentially be unavailable if large numbers of All Blacks were based in Europe.

The All Blacks, as always, are under huge pressure heading into the World Cup. They’d be under a lot more if key players needed for the Cup were currently based in Exeter or Toulouse.