Bay of Plenty Rugby Union seeking international opportunities to retain players

Bay of Plenty's Terence Hepetema is one of the region's players who have recently followed a full-time rugby career overseas. Photo / Getty Images

As a rugby player being able play the game professionally, fulltime is a pretty clear end game. For a provincial union, retaining players can be hard when international contracts are up for grabs, enticing players abroad. The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union is looking at ways of keeping more players at home. Kristin Macfarlane reports.

Providing Bay of Plenty's rugby players with more opportunities to become professionals at home could mean retaining quality athletes who would otherwise leave to pursue fulltime rugby careers overseas.

The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union has recognised this and has been putting a strong focus into further building international relationships so they can provide more opportunities for players to become professional, fulltime athletes closer to home and contribute to their communities.

The union's relationship with Fiji Rugby Union is one they have been actively strengthening. This year they have provided development programmes and coaching clinics with the Pacific Island union.

Bay Rugby Union chief executive officer Mike Rogers that relationship is one that has already seen return and he would like to see them expand even further.

"Fiji's a good example where we've been able to do some work there in terms of developing the game and that's lead on to us hosting the Māori All Blacks-Fiji game and the Fijian Under 20 match against the New Zealand Under 20 Māori, so that's a good example, I think, of how we work with international partnerships to benefit our community," Rogers says.

The union is also looking into how international relationships will help provide Bay of Plenty's rugby players – men and women – with the opportunity to play professional rugby full-time locally, rather than be forced to look outside of New Zealand.

"There's obviously, you know, a big global market now in rugby and we see a lot of our players head offshore to Japan or Europe so if there's a way that we can be smart, collaborate with other entities to be able to retain players then that's a real big benefit for us."

The Māori All Blacks beat Fiji 26-17 in Rotorua in July. Photo / File

In recent years, one of those players who left the Bay to pursue international contracts is Terrence Hepetema, who played for Te Puna, Bay of Plenty Steamers in the Mitre 10 Cup and the Blues in Super Rugby. He now plays for London Irish.

"Terrence is in Europe and there are a number of guys who go up to Japan as well. We've had Troy Callander who was in our team recently, he's up in Japan. There's a long list of players who have explored better opportunities financially and great for them that they've been able to secure those.

"We certainly don't see that as a negative, our job is to provide opportunities for anyone whether that's in New Zealand or whether that's internationally, it's no different than other industries in that regard but yeah, ultimately the more that we can provide good environments here and or partnerships internationally that provide those opportunities, that's what we're trying to do."

One of the opportunities Bay of Plenty is exploring is through Global Rapid Rugby, an international competition played across the Asia-Pacific region.

Playing in that competition could mean Bay of Plenty Steamers who don't secure Super Rugby contracts could move into the Global Rapid Rugby programme at the end of the Mitre 10 Cup season.

"That's what we're exploring whether it's with Global Rapid Rugby or other competitions or ... a partnership with another entity or another club where we can work to provide our players those opportunities where they're playing rugby fulltime and earning money to do that.

The Bay of Plenty Steamers celebrate winning Mitre 10 Cup Championship. Photo / Getty Images

He says nothing is confirmed with Global Rapid Rugby but they're exploring options with the intention of retaining players locally.

"That's certainly the motivation to try to provide an environment where the players do stay in New Zealand instead of losing them to a different country."

Rogers says playing professional rugby at home in New Zealand won't appeal to everyone but for those who want to, opportunities haven't always been available to them.

"If they can stay close to family generally that's a big advantage ... but also there'll be others who see an opportunity to explore some of the world and rugby's a vehicle to enable that."

"For us we are always looking for opportunities to give our players I guess, full-time employment in rugby and advance their rugby career and get to Super Rugby level or to a higher level so where ever there is an opportunity for players to be in a professional environment all the time that's going to help them grow and develop.

"That's motivation for us and it also means that we retain players in New Zealand and that's a really important outcome for us as well," Rogers says.

That's certainly the motivation to try to provide an environment where the players do stay in New Zealand instead of losing them to a different country.

"In America there's a new major league rugby competition being established and New Zealand players are being targeted to join that competition and join franchises over there and there's certainly talk of Japan around new competitions and that's going to potentially attract New Zealand players as well.

"Obviously Global Rapid rugby is an Asia-Pacific competition that's the same sort of thing so I guess we're very attentive to all those new competitions because immediately there's potential for us to lose players into those markets, so if there's a way that we can have an involvement in any particular competition or with partnership with a team it enables us to achieve that goal."

Rogers says the women's game is not as evolved as the men's but Bay of Plenty Rugby is equally committed to explore opportunities for the union's female players.

"We're exploring those at the same as much as we're exploring the opportunities on the male side, we're doing the same on the female side but it's at a different stage so we've got to be aware of what opportunities are there."