When this year’s rugby World Cup comes to a close, no fewer than seven players from the stables of the tournament favourites, New Zealand, look set to fly the coup and ply their trade in the Northern Hemisphere. Will this lead to a post world cup flop similar to England’s demise since their 2003 heroics, or is this just part and parcel of Graham Henry’s rotation policy?
The most recently confirmed departure is that of Carl Hayman, arguably the southern hemisphere’s best prop, who has aligned himself with Jonny Wilkinson’s Newcastle Falcons. Rather than being a rugby pension, this contract has been signed before the peak of Hayman’s playing career. At just 27 years of age and with 35 test caps to his name he is, certainly for a prop, but a pup.
Newcastle can reasonably expect to see the best years of Hayman’s career and will be well pleased with themselves for having secured the services of a player around whom they can rebuild their failing scrum. The NZRU on the other hand must be furious to have lost him and can only hope that he will return even better after a few years of valuable northern hemisphere scrummaging.
Even younger than Hayman is Luke McAlister at just 24 years of age who has been linked with French rugby’s perennial powerhouse, Toulouse. Unfortunately for McAlister he is a fly-half born in the same generation as one of the best fly-halves the world has seen in a long time, Dan Carter. Despite having shown himself to be a great player in his own right he knows that while Carter is an All Black, he will only ever be an understudy.
For McAlister this would seem a smart move. The current All Black administration seems to value northern hemisphere experience quite highly and a return to the All Black fold after a few years abroad will never be ruled out. McAlister will be banking on the lure of the North eventually becoming too much for Carter and you can bet that if Carter does leave, McAlister will be on the first plane back to New Zealand ready to rekindle his All Black career.
Together with these two spring chickens are five experienced players with over 200 tests of experience between them. Aaran Mauger (38), Byron Kelleher (44), Chris Jack (58), Rico Gear (17) and former captain, Anton Oliver (59) have all either signed or confirmed their desire to play in the northern hemisphere next season. Whilst the over thirties, Oliver and Kelleher, are in the winter of their careers, the other three could probably hold down All Black positions for a while yet if they stayed.
The Wallabies suffered a similar loss of players following the 1999 World Cup and 2001 Lions tour when elders Eales, Horan, Harry, Herbert, Foley, Kefu, Burke, Wilson and Finnegan all called time on their outstanding careers. Despite the relative success of the 2003 World Cup, the Wallabies have since lost their edge and with it almost every trophy in their once full cabinet.
Australian rugby’s downfall has been well documented and is still being played out with Gary Flowers recently falling on his sword having been unable to live up to the standard of Australia’s most successful sporting administrator, John O’Neil.
Will New Zealand suffer the same fate if all of these seven players leave? The answer is simply no. Graham Henry’s rotation and forced development of two international level squads has given the All Blacks the depth to cover even such a loss. The Wallabies on the other hand, continued their reliance on a core group of players for too long and when they all stepped down en masse there was no one ready to fill their spots.
Eddie Jones paid the price for this over-reliance but Australian rugby will continue to pay the price for some time yet.
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