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.
alumniman
Guest
Here's a poser? The ARU and the NZRU are able to buy/enter combined or sparate club sides in the English Rugby Championships. The team is heavily influenced by players who are paid salaries much higher than they earn Down Under. These salaries are possible through the ARU/NZRU creating a superclub of all-stars, highly marketable to sponsors and thousands of ex-pats, who expect the team win every game. The games are played at Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC. Mohammed al Fayed is a major shareholder, giving him another chance to stick it to the British elite (by winning their trophies).
sheek
Guest
Armchair Sportsfan, Love that comment - "I don't know the answers, as an armchair sportsman it is my duty to provide problems. not solutions....." Love it, love it, love it!
Terry Kidd
Guest
My comment on the AB players heading OS? Yippee !!! We might go close to winning the Bledisloe ...... and pigs might fly too. This world is dynamic and the moe things change, the more they stay the same. Good on 'em for maximising their earnings.
Armchair Sportsfan
Guest
Given that Garth Hamilton has written so many articles on this website in recent days, I would assume he doesn't have a real job - which means he should have more time to consider that the lack of depth in Australian rugby has little to do with Eddie Jones selection polciies as Australian head coach, and much more to do with the broader structure of rugby in Australia. A spiro points out, replacing the calibre of great players such as Eales, Horan, Tune (with two good knees) et al is always going to be very difficult, but even finding very good players seems to have been struggle for Australian Rugby. Even if Eddie Jones, Rod Macqueen or John Connolly decided at any stage to pick a few extra youngsters in the wallaby squad, would this really be the panacea for building depth in Australian Rugby? I think not. I think it is fair to say that the problems start well before wallaby contention, and even before Super Rugby contention. As an example, and with all due respect to Al Baxter and his achievements, in a previous era he might not have a single wallaby cap to his name, but I think many would acknowledge that in recent years there has been little other choice. Premier rugby in Qld and NSW has developed few other options. I would like to point out that I have no club affiliations, so from my independent standpoint it is clear to me that rugby clubs have been used and abused, and our premier rugby comps are now a joke. The ARC is in theory a good initiative, but I do agree with many critics that the lack of existing club idendities (and thus tribalism) may see it struggle. But once again the lack of strength in premier rugby will come back to bite us, as it means that the blokes playing for the mighty Ballymore Tornadoes or the beloved Sydney Fleet will simply be the non-wallaby super 14 players, and a host of academy players straight out of school. I don't know the answers, as an Armichair sportsfan it is my duty to provide problems, not solutions....
spiro
Guest
Hugh Dillon's point is valid, up to a point. New Zealand rugby can replace good All Blacks with other younger players who will be in time good All Blacks, as well. But great All Blacks? Australian rugby has seen how difficult it is to replace great players. Where is John Eales' successor? Or Tim Horan? And when he leaves Australian rugby after the Rugby World Cup, Stephen Larkham. It took New Zealand rugby years to replace Sean Fitzpatrick, Zinzan Brooke and Frank Bunce (who still hasn't had a true successor). Carl Hayman, a great player, will be etremely difficult to replace, particularly. The other players that Grath Hamilton mentions, the Chris Jacks and so on, good All Black and very good All Blacks, will be replaced quite quickly. The Crusaders second row has been going very well this season without Jack. I don't think that Luke Macalister will leave New Zealand as he is assured on the second five-eighth position (the NZ equivalent of inside centre) up to 2011 I would think. A pairing of Daniel Carter and Luke Macalister as five-eighths would terrorise most defences if they had the chance to build up a combination over several years.
Ben
Guest
One only has to look to the current rumblings in the IRB v Clubs standoff in the European Cup at the moment. The money is in Europe and the clubs are finally starting to throw their weight around. We should all remember that many players, particularly Pacific Islanders, were not released by the clubs for their own countries in the RWC 2003. If the clubs break away en masse and successfully set up a separate club competition then there is a real risk that internationals will become a thing of the past and southern hemisphere rugby (with the possible exception of South Africa which is aligned with the European timezones) may become a backwater. That would be appalling but the IRB's weak regulation of the European clubs is now coming back to haunt them, and possibly world rugby. Unfortunately money talks and the European clubs are cahsed up. As to the rotation policy, Garth suggests that it is a blessing because it means other players can step up. As an alternate viewpoint (and I am not close enough to NZ rugby to say with any certainty) is it possible that the mixed messages of repeated rotation and cottonwoolling a limited number of players has so devalued the All Black jumper that it is no longer a sufficient counterbalance to overseas money? New Zealand has always struggling financially but the lure of the black jersey has been strong. Superannuation All Blacks excluded for obvious reasons, why the sudden change and is it coincidental? Losing players of the calibre of Hayman, Blackie, Mauger and McAlister (as well as the other departing players) is a huge blow.
Hugh Dillon
Guest
When 7 All Blacks take off for the big money, Henry has another 7 almost as good to take over. They are the Fort Knox of rugby -- we should be learning how they coach schoolboys and club players.
Paul Parker
Guest
These are interesting observations. My comments, for what they're worth: 1. This heading off to Europe is just what happens in professional sport (evidence: vitually the entire Socceroo squad playing in Europe), ie. as a professional, you go where the money is. There are no guarantees in sport, and the likes of Carl Hayman et al would realise this. Although he may be at the peak of his career, as far as the All Blacks are concerned, it seems that there is always someone just as good/nearly as good waiting in the wings. Perhaps it doesn't matter to him whether he has played 35, 45, or 55 Tests for New Zealand, at the end of the day all he needs to tell his grandchildren is "I played for the All Blacks". 2. I think that for some analysis you need to be able to separate on-field performance from off-field performance. In Australia, as rightly pointed out in the above article, Australia is struggling with both at the moment. While not underestimating the role of the CEO, I'm not sure how much influence one has in the on-field performance of the players. It is the players that play, not the administrators. It is hard to imagine that a player playing at the highest level would not be giving their best at all times. They are being paid big bucks to do something that thousands of young men would happily do for free. So the question becomes, do we have the right people playing at the highest level? As evidenced by the recent performances of the 2 biggest unions in Australia, NSW & Queensland, I would conclude that the right people are not playing. Why? Who knows, but my view is this: recently those that select players for their squads, it seems to me, have been only too happy to discard experienced players in favour of youth. But in Australia, unlike in New Zealand, the genuine depth of talent is simply not there. Too easily have the likes of Matthew Burke, Justin Harrison, Scott Staniforth et al, have been let go, to be replaced by players who, in many cases, are not much more than very good club players. How ironic it is to see Staniforth return to his rightful position in the Wallabies after being discarded by the Waratahs, and calls for Matthew Burke to return (after his disgaceful demise form the Waratahs) when it has been realised that once Latham is out of the equation, the player pool is pretty shallow.
Vincent
Guest
I'm not sure but there could be a method to eh exodus shown by some of the all blacks..two thoughts come to mind: 1) Some of these players heading overseas have still the possibility of playing for sometime and coming back and still being eligible for the all blacks, they would not be 'superannuation' blacks if they did. 2) the experience they bring back will further strengthen the ranks of the all blacks, I am thinking of this in a 'capacity building' type of excercise. We've always talked about the different styles of Northern Hemisphere and Southern hemisphere. Cross polination of rugby styles ?
sheek
Guest
Yeah Garth, The problems of Australian Rugby are well documented. And its timely that apologists for the ARU are finally admitting that, while all is not lost, it's very close to the next worse thing. I don't know if John O'Neill is the messiah - he could be nothing more than a naughty boy (apologies to 'Life Of Brian'). The Dick Marks interview, in The Australian (I think) gave an alternate perspective to any apparent genius on O'Neill's part. Personally, I think second comings tend not to work so well. The circumstances surrounding a person's first coming, are rarely replicated. In O'Neill's case, if he becomes the ARU head honcho a second time, he will be facing new problems, new players, new board members, new directions, etc, etc. And even if he is annointed, there will be a block of people, "willing" him to fail. Hardly, the atmosphere for co-operation, goodwill & success. With respect to NZ, the NZRU is apparently broke. When a union with the best 30-40 squad players in the world is broke, it makes you worry about Southern Hemisphere Rugby, particularly NZ & Australia. NZ can usually provide the players, but struggles to raise money. Australia is presently struggling on both fronts. Where will it all lead to? Better minds than mine can expalin that!