New Zealand teams have won almost five times as many Super Rugby competitions as closest rival Australia. Could a player draft make a difference? Photo / Photosport
New Zealand teams have won almost five times as many Super Rugby competitions as closest rival Australia. Could a player draft make a difference? Photo / Photosport
New Zealand Rugby is open to the idea of a Super Rugby Pacific player draft, but the rugby governing body insists there have been no active discussions with Rugby Australia in regard to establishing one.
The concept of a draft has been bandied around throughout the season but was thrustinto the spotlight last week when RA boss Hamish McLennan told NZME’s Rugby Direct podcast how a draft could benefit the competition.
New Zealand franchises have historically dominated the competition. In the 26 incarnations of Super Rugby in which teams from multiple counties have competed, New Zealand teams have won 19 titles, with Australian outfits claiming four and South African sides winning three. New Zealand will add another title to that count this Saturday when the Chiefs and Crusaders meet in the final in Hamilton.
The last time an Australian Super Rugby team won the competition was the Waratahs’ heroics in 2014, when a Bernard Foley penalty goal in the 80th minute lifted the side to a 33-32 win over the Crusaders.
McLennan’s idea for a draft would include two stages, one for rookies and another for top-level talents which could see some of New Zealand’s best players picked up by teams across the ditch, or in the competition’s newest teams Moana Pasifika and the Fijian Drua.
NZR general manager of professional rugby and performance Chris Lendrum said the idea of a draft might be worth exploring, but there were a lot of challenges in it coming to fruition.
“Talking about things like competition-wide salary caps or drafts, those are really complex things. There’s a lot of legal complexity in terms of having a set of laws that can apply to the competition across New Zealand, Australia and Fiji – and potentially anywhere else the competition may wish to expand further down the line,” Lendrum said.
“It’s also complex from a high-performance perspective because we want this competition to be great in its own right, but there’s no denying the fact the competition feeds the All Blacks, Wallabies, Flying Fijians, Samoa and Tonga. You have to make sure whatever the eligibility rules are, they’re still going to enable all of those teams to be strong on the international stage.
“That doesn’t mean that it’s all too hard. We’ve definitely got an open mind around this in the future. I think the key is making sure everybody involved in the competition can invest at the same level in terms of their development; so it’s not one country’s development system subsidising other countries; that everybody can come and contribute equally. Then you get that potentially very compelling spread of talent and competition.”
NZR general manager of professional rugby and performance Chris Lendrum. Photo / Getty Images
Lendrum added that while there are no active discussions between the concerned parties, NZR is open to exploring the idea in the future “if it’s in the best interests of the competition”.
While it’s unlikely anything changes in terms of building squads any time soon, the future of All Blacks rest weeks could be revised once incoming All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson takes the reins.
As it stands, All Blacks can only play five Super Rugby games in a row before having to be rested for a week as a means of keeping them fresh for the international season.
Lendrum said NZR would be consulting with Robertson and the several incoming coaches to New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams, and sounding them out about what – if anything – needs to change there.
“We’ve got a new All Blacks coach who will be in place after the World Cup who’ll have views on this we’ll need to take account of. We’ll have a bunch of new Super Rugby coaches as well,” Lendrum said.
“The key will be to sit down and have a really good conversation amongst those people, and say ‘are there ways in which we could improve it?’
“So, [there are] conversations to come. I don’t expect it to go away, but hopefully people recognise when you’ve got players playing a contact sport like rugby week in, week out, there needs to be some gaps at times.”
