Sam Whitelock will be playing in Japan next year. Photo / Photosport
Sam Whitelock will be playing in Japan next year. Photo / Photosport
COMMENT:
Full marks to Sky for ambition and their desire to turn the naming of New Zealand's Super Rugby teams into an event.
But the last thing Super Rugby sides needed was to be put under the harsh glare of studio lights where all their flaws were exposed.
The storyof 2020 is not who is in, but who is out and just how many big names are these days able to dictate terms about when they will and won't play.
If rugby came into the professional age with administrators holding all the power, this year's Super Rugby line-ups will show that the players have managed to storm the halls of power and wrestle a level of control that suggests they say what they want and the suits flap around making it happen.
What does it say about the value of Super Rugby and its place in the hearts and minds of the best players when Sam Whitelock, the man many expect to be named as the next All Blacks captain, is not going to be with the Crusaders in the first year of a World Cup cycle?
Brodie Retallick isn't with the Chiefs. Beauden Barrett is part of the Blues squad but no one knows quite yet when he will actually be available.
Sam Whitelock will be playing in Japan next year. Photo / Photosport
He has the option to take an extended break from all rugby which may be utilised this year with the right to additionally play a season in Japan.
It's probable, too, that a host of other players will return to action well after the season actually kicks off.
The message is clear – many players don't love Super Rugby. They have set their contracts up to get out of it best they can – to only play when it suits.
It's hard to impossible, then, for anyone to get excited by a competition that can't engage its own employees.
New Zealand Rugby has done a great job in spinning a welfare narrative to shroud the truth of this. They have argued that with a rugby calendar that starts in January and ends in late November, they have had to find ways to protect and manage the players.
We have been asked to believe that without some give in their individual workloads, the best players would be leaving for offshore clubs permanently rather than temporarily.
The so-called sabbatical has been sold as the lesser of two evils but that's now flawed.
If Whitelock was taking five months off all rugby then it would make sense. It worked for Richie McCaw in 2013. But the welfare argument is hard to buy when he's going to be playing in Japan and then effectively shifting straight into test action.
Where exactly is the welfare element in that scenario? And the problem for NZR is that they have continually allowed Super Rugby to be the competition that is compromised in the contractual arrangements of the best players, that the credibility becomes irreversibly damaged.
Outgoing All Blacks coach Steve Hansen waves to the crowd. Photo / Photosport
Tonight's unveiling of New Zealand's Super Rugby squads won't feel like a great moment, more that things have snowballed out of control.
When so many players are now able to either miss all of Super Rugby or some of it, it says something is not right and that NZR has to re-think the whole business of player retention as the cost of keeping the best here can't be the total destruction of the show-piece competition.
What makes it worse this year is that a new All Blacks coach is going to be at the helm and Super Rugby is not going to provide all of the answers it should.
This should be a year of new beginnings. A year when everyone, no matter their reputation or experience, has to prove themselves to the new coach.
The first year post-World Cup is always one of regeneration and rejuvenation. It has typically been an opportunity for the unknown to make a mark and for the established to prove they still have what it takes.
Everyone is on trial in year one of a cycle, especially when it coincides with a new coaching group taking the helm.
But this year that won't be the case as Whitelock is not on trial. He'll earn a fortune playing club rugby in Japan and do so knowing he's already been granted an exemption to be eligible for test duty in July.
It doesn't feel right that not everyone is in the Super Rugby trench, having to trek the same path to All Blacks selection.
It's not one rule for everyone any more and if players can skip Super Rugby and still play for the All Blacks why not just change the selection criteria and allow those based overseas to be eligible?
NZR is adamant it doesn't want to do that but making exemptions for certain individuals is worse because the whole ethos of the All Blacks is based on team first.
