Richie Barnett: Administrators must stop young talent going

Valentine Holmes of the Sharks. Photo / Getty Images

Valentine Holmes is a kid with immense talent and will be a star of the future and it's part of the reason why, as a Kiwis selector, I'm annoyed we missed out on him.

The Sharks winger told us he wanted to play for the Kiwis, which is why we named him in the Four Nations train-on squad, but only days later came back to us and said he was putting his lot in with Australia.

It's a scenario that has happened too many times in the past, with the likes of James Tamou and Josh Papalii recent examples. New Zealand has a growing talent base but we can't afford to lose top players and we need to get smarter about how we invest in them at an earlier age.

For many youngsters with dual eligibility, playing for Australia is a huge carrot with so many layers to it and influential people over there know it.

Queensland coach Mal Meninga has become the Big Kahuna, the chief salesman, who can pitch what they can offer a player - money, success, prestige and profile, which all come from playing State of Origin. And if it's not someone like Mal doing it, then the agents are in their ears chirping away.

It makes our job as Kiwis selectors that much harder but we need to fight back. For exceptional players we need to fight harder and we have sometimes picked players before they are ready to try to capture their eligibility.

We don't really have much to entice players with other than the black jersey and we have to hope that's enough. In some cases it is, like it was for Kieran Foran, Benji Marshall and Jason Taumalolo.

Tawera Nikau and Ruben Wiki went to Bondi a couple of years ago to talk to a group of youngsters eligible for New Zealand about what it means to play for the Kiwis. It's about time we did something similar again.

We also need to be in regular contact with clubs and players to let them know we are watching because at the moment it doesn't happen. As selectors, we need to be planning for the 2021 World Cup and beyond, not just the next instalment in 2017, and we hope the establishment of a New Zealand 16s side will capture more players younger.

Tawera and I recently caught up with Wayne Smith to learn more about how the All Blacks do things. If we want to be better then we need to learn from the best, but league is a different beast to other codes.

Australia undoubtedly do it better, which is part of the reason why they have long been at the top of the tree. They have a database of players from top to bottom. We simply don't do enough research and are hamstrung by limited resources.

When it comes down to it, players have to want to play for New Zealand and it's a philosophy that was behind some of the selections for this year's Anzac test.

There was a feeling some players were taking their places for granted and their performances reflected that. We wanted players who would treasure the jersey and work hard for it.

We took some heat for leaving out the likes of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves but we were prepared to wear it and have been delighted in the way he has responded. He's shown he wants the jersey back and we hope that passion is reflected in this year's Four Nations.