Justin Marshall: Super Rugby will never be the same again

Keven Mealamu will tonight play his last Super Rugby game after 16 years of service to the competition. Photograph by Jason Oxenham.

As I contemplated a Chalkboard column on the plane from Queenstown to Auckland for tonight's Blues-Highlanders clash, it dawned on me that this weekend represents the end of an era in every sense.

Keven Mealamu will tonight play his last Super Rugby game after 16 years of service to the competition, 15 of them with the Blues.

Tomorrow evening in Canberra, Richie McCaw and Dan Carter will bid farewell to Super Rugby and the Crusaders franchise they helped turn into a force.

A little bit further down the track Conrad smith and Ma'a Nonu will put their Hurricanes jerseys back on the peg for the final time.

It's the end of the era alright, and that's before you even contemplate the dramatic changes to the competition that will see an extra side from South Africa, a team from Asia and one from Argentina, plus a new format.

Will we ever see the likes of Mealamu again? I seriously doubt it. The new competition is (hopefully) going to provide new entertainment, but it is also going to present some serious logistical challenges. Players are looking abroad much younger now and I just wonder whether the new Super Rugby format will exacerbate that.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Mealamu, McCaw and Smith et al may be the last of the long-term loyal breed.

Mealamu certainly deserved a better send-off than he got this year. Apart from one season at the Chiefs when the Blues didn't want him, he has served the franchise incredibly well. He's won a title with them and also been with them when they're at their lowest.

It's been a roller-coaster for sure and I'd hate to think how many players he's seen come and go during his time there but the beauty of Mealamu is he would have treated each and every one of those players exactly the same. That's one of the reasons he is so widely respected and liked.

I have some fond and not-so-fond memories of McCaw and carter when they were making their way into the Crusaders. In McCaw's first season he wasn't in the starting team so he treated every training game like a test match. He was a complete pain in the arse for me at the breakdown but you could see even back then how dedicated he was to the cause.

I remember Carter in his early days telling me I should watch out because he played a bit of halfback.

When Nonu first made the All Blacks I was his roommate so I can't help but feel a little poignant about this exodus of players.

You can't help but feel it's a real changing of the guard and Super Rugby will never be the same again. I don't mind admitting it makes me feel a little sad.