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All Black legend Carlos Spencer on Rugby Champs for the women\u2019s game <\/p>\n
All Black legend Carlos Spencer on Rugby Champs for the women\u2019s game <\/p>\n
Australia doesn\u2019t boast the same talent pool as New Zealand and it\u2019s just not economically viable for all the elite Springboks to represent teams at home, so I concede we\u2019re maybe not talking apples and apples here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s not like Jordie Barrett<\/a> is in the All Blacks<\/a> on the back of a stellar 2025 Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> season or that Ardie Savea\u2019s isn\u2019t going to be picked from Japan<\/a> next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n By hook or by crook, NZR has justified selecting All Blacks from offshore sabbaticals for years now.\u00a0<\/p>\n A couple of things caught my eye in the last week or so, regarding this country\u2019s depth of talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n The first was the selection of the All Blacks\u2019 Rugby Championship squad, which contained any number of players picked above their station, as well as comments from NZR\u2019s general manager of community rugby Steve Lancaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n He was speaking on the topic of the NPC, with the clue as to why he was chosen as NZR\u2019s spokesman clear from his job title.\u00a0<\/p>\n Provincial footy is a community-level product now, as Lancaster himself indicated. In selling the competition to the public, Lancaster said the beauty of the NPC is that it enables fans to see players from local schools and clubs represent their province.\u00a0<\/p>\n If that\u2019s at suburban grounds, such as the Northern United Rugby Football Club\u2019s home at Porirua Park, so much the better.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s nice that some fringe All Blacks got some NPC footy last week or that lock Sam Darry<\/a> is making his return from injury in Canterbury<\/a> colours. But, as All Blacks coach Scott Robertson<\/a> noted this week, that\u2019s purely for conditioning purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n No-one\u2019s pretending this is high performance rugby anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that\u2019s fine. It really is. It\u2019s just that, even if the salary cap for NPC teams is reduced to $840,000, it\u2019s still a pretty pricey community asset.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mind you, that\u2019s a mere drop in the bucket when those summoned as injury cover for the All Blacks almost outnumber the actual number of fit players in the squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s a few All Blacks that wouldn\u2019t get out of bed for $840,000. At least not without lucrative sabbatical clauses in their contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guys miss Super Rugby campaigns, as we all know. Heck, All Blacks captain Scott Barrett<\/a> is sitting out next year\u2019s one.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NPC doesn\u2019t appear as if it\u2019s now a meaningful part of the pathway to test rugby, so what are we waiting for or protecting by pretending you have to play in New Zealand to be selected in the All Blacks?\u00a0<\/p>\n