New Zealand Rugby boss Mark Robinson is demanding fairness after Sanzaar released the Rugby Championship schedule that, as it stands, will involve the All Blacks quarantining through Christmas on their return from Australia.
COMMENT:
If you listen carefully, that noise you can hear from out west is the sound of millions of Aussies laughing like kookaburras at the sight of New Zealand Rugby's statement of "disappointment" at the scheduling of the Rugby Championship.
NZ Rugby are well and truly snookered. Bottom line –as it stands, New Zealand's players and management won't be home in time for Christmas Day due to the final test between the All Blacks and Wallabies being played in Sydney on December 12.
If the All Blacks return home a day later, the earliest they will see their families after the standard fortnight of quarantine is December 27: ho, ho, no.
"We were working on the understanding and all our planning and scheduling was on the basis that the All Blacks' last match would be on December 5," said NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson.
What an absolute shambles, and this, while no fault of Robinson's, after Australia won the right to host the thing ahead of New Zealand at the last moment.
This isn't all of Australia's doing of course – South Africa and Argentina are also involved in the competition along with the Sydney-based Sanzaar executives, a small workforce likely speeding towards redundancy if today's events are any indication – but they are likely to take the most pleasure in it all.
Sam Cane, Dane Coles and Anton Lienert-Brown of the All Blacks sing the national anthem ahead of the Rugby World Cup 2019 Semi-Final match. Photo / Getty Images.
I say redundancy because the old-style, bloated Super Rugby competition is dead and now the future of the Rugby Championship appears to be heading towards intensive care. The items on Sanzaar's daily to-do list are dwindling about as quickly as the goodwill between all four nations.
And I say pleasure because remember when NZ Rugby asked for expressions of interest from Australia about joining New Zealand's Super Rugby competition next year? Note: expressions of interest, rather than an invitation to get around a (virtual) table and thrash out the issues.
They may have been right to do so in theory because Australia has a track record of not being able to support five Super Rugby teams, but as an opening gambit it was about as palatable to the Aussies as a dead frog in a sock.
NZ Rugby took a sledgehammer approach to talks with Rugby Australia, whose financial plight and struggle for football relevancy in a nation losing patience with the game after years of underachievement was such that a slightly more diplomatic stance may have been more appropriate.
So the Aussies are unlikely to be rolling their sleeves up in anticipation of "working through the issues" in terms of a new schedule as Robinson also said in a statement which admits his organisation was completely left out of the loop in terms of scheduling. In hindsight, NZ Rugby's Super Rugby approach looks a lot like hubris.
As Robinson has made his disappointment so public so quickly, it's difficult to see Sanzaar or Rugby Australia making any significant changes to the schedule to accommodate the All Blacks without losing face. This is it, folks.
The most pressing problem for Robinson and company now of course is that many of his players who were hedging their bets in terms of wanting to be away from home for 10 weeks, including two stints of quarantine, in the middle of a pandemic now may find it a lot easier to make the decision to stay home.
All Blacks perform haka v South Africa last year. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
There will be subtle pressure coming from all sides and no player should be criticised by the public or media no matter his decision.
For NZ Rugby it could be a rotten end to a terrible last 12 months or so which has included a World Cup defeat for the defending champions. The only thing that would make it worse is losing the Bledisloe Cup, and, given the Aussies' off-field success over the last few weeks, it's probably sensible for All Blacks supporters not to make any assumptions.
