New Zealand Rugby’s eligibility policy seems to have been built largely on the principles of the US legal system where justice looks a lot different to those who have wealth and influence than it does to those who don’t.
Supposedly New Zealand has adopted, since the first days ofprofessionalism, a hard and unforgiving stance about only picking domestically contracted players for the All Blacks.
Sign with an overseas club and that’s the test dream over. Except, that is, if you happen to be deemed to be in the secret club of special players who can work whatever back channels need to be worked to extract an exemption clause to bag the foreign loot in a short-term offshore deal and swan back home straight into the All Blacks.
This has been going on for more than a decade — NZR insistent they run a fiercely protective eligibility policy, while periodically deciding the rules don’t apply to certain players.
The secrecy of the process is divisive — the rationale why some players qualify for exemption, and others don’t, is never explained and that corrodes the notion of the All Blacks being a side built on fraternity and equality.
What has equally-well illustrated NZR’s two-tier eligibility laws is the conflicting narratives that have been weaponised in the fight to retain talent.
The establishment have never been afraid of sending a young player whose test potential is yet to be fulfilled, on a long and painful guilt trip should they decide to leave New Zealand earlier than anticipated.
When NZR have tried and failed to keep a young talent in the country, they like to build a picture of disloyalty and greed being the motivational drivers for the offshore move.
But the chosen ones granted dispensation to leave and yet remain eligible, are sold to the country as heroic, tireless warriors whose loyalty can’t be questioned, because they are temporarily leaving, not for money, but for the personal and professional development opportunity time abroad provides.
The last great act of hypocrisy in all this eligibility inconsistency, has been NZR’s accusation that Super Rugby is being damaged by Australia having openly adapted their eligibility policy to pick players from offshore clubs.
They say this while knowing that over the years Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Beauden Barrett and Patrick Tuipulotu have been allowed to sit out a Super Rugby campaign, as will Ardie Savea in 2024.
Ardie Savea will be heading offshore in 2024. Photo / Photosport
You have to wonder, then, who exactly swallows this guff about the integrity of the system, and whether by rejecting Barrett’s request to play offshore in 2024 and 2025 and stay eligible for the All Blacks, NZR’s board have realised that they can’t preside any longer over a dual and fundamentally corrupt system of eligibility.
It’s plainly farcical for anyone to argue that NZR is winning the war to retain talent under the existing regulations. It’s neither winning nor operating within its own policy.
It feels like it might be time to clean this whole mess up and either commit to the current system with no exceptions or make clearly documented changes that don’t rely on players gaining entrance to a secret club to be granted the right to remain eligible while playing offshore.
The latter, given the Covid-enforced reconstruction of Super Rugby and the financial clout of the Northern heavyweights, would be the more prudent course to follow.
The balance of power has shifted, possibly irreversibly, and New Zealand is facing a different sort of conflict now to the one it previously has.
And, as much as this may be painful for NZR to admit, the Australian policy of allowing those who have won a specific number of test caps to remain eligible if they go offshore, is the elegant solution to what is an inelegant situation.
This is basically happening already. The New Zealand players who have been granted dispensation to retain their eligibility from offshore clubs have been long-servers who have thrown a fair bit into the jersey.
Adopting the Australian system wouldn’t be any kind of radical shift, other than it would bring the sort of transparency that the current system lacks.
Set the threshold at the right level — 80 caps — and there won’t be an exodus, but more importantly there won’t be this prevailing sense that players who want a foreign stint and All Blacks selection, should seriously think about hiring a lobbyist to wine and dine the NZR board and exploit the secret system that is open to only the chosen few.
