Moana Pasifika during the cultural challenge before their clash against the Māori All Blacks in December last year. Photo / Photosport
Moana Pasifika during the cultural challenge before their clash against the Māori All Blacks in December last year. Photo / Photosport
The new Moana Pasifika Super Rugby franchise will reportedly be free to sign up to three current All Blacks to its squad, potentially weakening the pool of players available to the five core New Zealand franchises.
New Zealand Rugby Players Association boss Rob Nichol told SENZ on Tuesday that there would be a range of eligibility exemptions made available to the new Super Rugby team in order to boost its player stocks.
Crucially, current All Blacks or those in the running for the black jersey would be free to play for Moana Pasifika without giving up the chance to play for New Zealand.
"For both teams [the Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika] the majority of the squad will be eligible for Fiji, Samoa, or Tonga," Nichol told SENZ.
"And then, for example, Moana Pasifika, I think they can have three players who are eligible for the All Blacks, or current All Blacks as such ... you could see up to three players who are effectively contracted to New Zealand Rugby, and then seconded to play for Moana Pasifika."
Nichol also believes the competition will allow the franchise to easily sign former New Zealand or Australian internationals without affecting the aforementioned three-man quota.
"There is a bit of flexibility around returning players, a player who has played for the All Blacks and gone overseas for a few years, and come back and is playing NPC here, and is not likely to make the All Blacks.
"They have effectively closed that book [the All Blacks] but they wouldn't be included in the three, they would be outside that."
This loosening of existing regulations around the signing of international players has come about, Nichol believes, because New Zealand Rugby has made a big push to support the new franchises in every way possible ahead of their debut seasons.
"New Zealand Rugby have stepped up significantly around all the off-field kind of things that can be helped and from a high-performance perspective, a commercial perspective, sharing of knowledge, creating the opportunity through issuing the two licences ... we all want them to be successful."
NZRPA boss Rob Nichol. Photo / Photosport
However, there is already some concern within the established New Zealand franchises that the loosening of player-signing regulations could dilute their own pools of talent.
Blues assistant coach Tom Coventry told the Herald in April that he was certain about the impact two new franchises would have on his squad.
"I've got no doubt it's going to really affect our depth," Coventry said.
"We're always looking to the provinces to make sure we've got guys in here that can step up in time. If we're losing those sorts of players to opposition teams in Super Rugby, it's going to dilute the competition for sure.
"If you look at New Zealand that the sort of players we do turn out, and how young we're prepared to play players, it's one of our strengths. We're probably the envy of the world, our melting pot of players is pretty strong, so it'll certainly dilute it."
While the so-called three All Black rule would benefit Moana Pasifika in the short-term, it will also add to concerns that the team could effectively become a sixth Super Rugby franchise for NZ Rugby, which granted the license for the team to operate.
One of those was Pacific Rugby Welfare CEO Daniel Leo who tweeted those concerns in April: "Already 2 NZ Rugby Board members on Moana's committee & hearing a NZRPA employee being lined up as Moana Director of Rugby.
"Lots of room for conflict of interest ... Very little consultation with SAMOA & TONGA.
It's not just the depth of playing talent that is set to be tested in the coming months, coaches too will be at more of a premium with Aaron Mauger already rumoured to be in the running to lead the Moana Pasifika team.
"There are a number of candidates who are probably quite obvious who are out there in the market and who have expressed interest," Moana Pasifika general manager Kevin Senio told the Breakdown earlier this year.
"We are just trying to work through that with a committee and a panel once we have shortlisted those names."
Due to travel restrictions, the Fijian Drua are likely to be based in Australia for much, if not all, of their inaugural campaign while Moana Pasifika's chances of staging games outside their Auckland base, in Samoa or Tonga, appear remote.
Super Rugby Pacific will kick off on 18 February next year with an eight-team playoff series culminating in a final on 18 June.
