All Blacks coach Ian Foster running a training session at Otumoetai College. Photo / George Novak
All Blacks coach Ian Foster running a training session at Otumoetai College. Photo / George Novak
OPINION:
There has been an erosion of basic skill execution across professional rugby in New Zealand.
The evidence of that has been on view from the first Super Rugby Pacific games in February to the All Blacks test in Christchurch last week.
A country that was once revered for itsslick passing, its pin-point kicking, its accuracy in defusing high kicks and its technical precision at cleaning out rucks, is now seeing its rugby ambition held hostage by its skill execution inadequacies.
Poor execution of the basics – pass, catch, kick - has been the biggest failing in the All Blacks' game this year and the defining memories of their test programme have come from dropped balls, wild passes and penalties conceded.
The finger of blame has almost exclusively been pointed at the All Blacks coaching team, but the problem is starting to feel like it may be systemic and the origins of this skill-execution failure at the highest level may be traceable right back to the school programmes to which the best players are exposed.
It's a long road back from the All Blacks to first XV, but if bad habits and poor attitudes are enabled and endorsed at such a critical stage of the development process, they tend to become corrosive and corruptive and almost impossible to correct.
New Zealand's leading rugby schools bristle at the suggestion they do anything other than instil virtue in their pupils, but that's largely because they have become blind to the damage being done by their self-styled pursuit of excellence.
The harder truth to swallow for all those involved in delivering rugby programmes at secondary schools, is that they are setting up pupils to fail because the system identifies talent at too young an age; forces those with ability to specialise too early and by extension restrict their exposure to other sports and gives the early superstars an inflated confidence that often builds an acute sense of entitlement.
The sharp decline in the number of teenage boys playing rugby is the single most damning evidence that the system is broken.
School rugby prioritises short-term over long-term success. Photo / Rachel Canning
Those who have been tasked with trying to understand why this is happening, have had clear feedback from disaffected pupils, many of whom say they gave up rugby because they missed out on selection for the top team in year one of their secondary education and were never given any real opportunity to play their way into an elite set-up.
Others say they made the top team but hated the pressure and the overly serious nature of it and gave up to play other sports for fun.
And another significant group didn't like being asked to specialise in one sport at an early age – particularly as the anecdotal evidence is strong that New Zealand's best rugby players all played other sports at a high level.
What the feedback alludes to is that the selection system in traditional rugby schools becomes self-fulfilling.
The focus on elite teams begins too early and those who have been picked tend to keep being picked to protect the reputation of those who picked them.
It's a vicious cycle that sees those rejected early take up other sports to reduce the talent pool so dramatically that by the time a cohort reaches year 13, it's often only those identified early who are still playing.
When a generation of pupils grow up taking their own selection for granted, it doesn't foster a strong work ethic or demand anyone to refine their basic skill execution and maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise that as many of the current All Blacks have come through these highly professionalised school systems, that under pressure, they can't deliver the precision skill execution their peers of old could.
And what might be even harder for the leading rugby schools to accept is that the only winners in their professionalised rugby programmes are two particular groups of adults: parents who validate themselves by seeing their kid make the under-15 A team and those who crave a full-time coaching career.
All Blacks coach Ian Foster running a training session at Otumoetai College. Photo / George Novak
Schools rugby has become the gateway to professional, provincial posts for emerging coaches and we have to wonder whether they are prioritising short-term success over long-term development.
First XV remains a level of rugby where size and power can deliver victories, which in turn can lead to titles, which in turn can build a coach the sort of CV that lands them their dream job.
If that seems a long bow to draw, look at how the All Blacks, when confronted by a defiant Pumas defence in Christchurch, reverted to trying to smash their way through it with one-off runners.
Bash and smash is the default setting for a generation who haven't been taught game management, strategic thinking, or been forced to use the quality of their pass and catch as a means to break a defence.
