It used to be that when an All Black retired, you’d find him on the farm, or holding down a seat for life at the local clubrooms. To find one these days, all you need do is reach for the remote.
Carlos Spencer, for example, last year eased out of the patchy coaching career that followed his playing days with Carlos’ Reno Rescue, a TVNZ show in which the mercurial first-five turned up, hammer-in-hand, to reward selected community heroes with a room makeover. Then Israel Dagg and Stephen Donald appeared earlier this year in Clubhouse Rescue on Bravo, with a design team in tow, to renovate run-down community sports clubs.
More recently, the action has shifted to the foreign fields of France, where they’ve been making identical-looking shows to screen as warm-ups for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
Spencer went with his mate and former Māori All Black Matua Parkinson to make the four-part travelogue Lost in France for Prime. The pair start in Paris before heading to the South of France to learn about Basque culture and visit Beziers, where Spencer first took the field as an All Black, coming on as a replacement for Simon Culhane, who was himself standing in for an injured Andrew Mehrtens, in a 30-9 victory over Languedoc-Roussillon.
There are some rugby catch-ups too. The pair meet France’s legendary fullback Serge Blanco and visit All Blacks hard man Jerome Kaino, who finished his playing career in 2021 with Toulouse and has stayed on as assistant coach at the French club’s academy.
Toulouse also happens to be where Dagg and Donald start their tour for Izzy & Beaver’s French Connection, screening on Bravo. We have no word on whether they, too, reconnect with Kaino, but it’s the kick-off point for a journey through the south in “a comically small Fiat” taking them from “1000-year-old churches and castles to 2000-year-old Roman arenas and temples; idyllic vineyards and olive groves to spectacular national parks and beaches; and quaint villages and countryside to major metropolises and the glamour of the casinos of the French Riviera”.
Curiously, the Spencer-Parkinson modes of transport seem to involve a comically small Citroën 2CV – as well as motorbikes.
But wait! There’s more! New Zealand Rugby has reached for the stars to launch its new digital platform, NZR+ – hiring Taika Waititi to shoot a six-part series mixing rugby, culture and travel in France. He definitely does meet Kaino, who must have a busy agent. Little more has been made public at the time of writing, but you’ll need to create a free login at NZR+ to watch.
That gets you into NZR’s beefed-up marketing database ahead of whatever plans are afoot for the next five years. By the time the next Rugby World Cup kicks off in 2027 in Australia, we might all be watching All Blacks matches on the All Blacks’ own platform. But for now, as far as TV goes, there’s a lot Toulouse.
Oh, and the actual Rugby World Cup? That starts with a match between the All Blacks and the hosts on September 9.
Lost in France, Sky Open, from Wednesday, August 30, 8.30pm; Izzy & Beaver’s French Connection, Bravo, from Friday, September 8, 7.30pm
