{"id":845951,"date":"2026-08-06T19:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845951\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:50:26","slug":"as-all-blacks-fans-ramp-up-for-rugbys-greatest-rivalry-it-would-be-foolhardy-to-overlook-the-npc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845951\/","title":{"rendered":"As All Blacks fans ramp up for Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, it would be foolhardy to overlook the NPC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They say, when you meet a new baby in the extended family, it\u2019s poor form to ignore any older siblings in the process of making a spirited dash for the latest arrival. It\u2019s a piece of advice that springs to mind seeing how New Zealand<\/a> Rugby [NZR] has directed all the media attention at the All Blacks<\/a>\u2019 tour of South Africa \u2013 with the national team jetting off from Auckland<\/a> on the same day that the National Provincial Championship began.<\/p>\n

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This is certainly a case of the older sibling being overlooked for the agreeable new arrival, and while there were endless stories and opinion pieces about the All Blacks, there was barely a mention of the fact that Waikato<\/a> had beaten Bay of Plenty<\/a> in the opening game of what is now called the Hilux NPC.<\/p>\n

And here lies the dichotomy for NZR \u2013 it wants fans to engage with all levels of the game and have this continuum of support from grassroots, through the NPC, to Super Rugby and on to the All Blacks \u2013 but it is becoming increasingly difficult to stretch attention spans and budgets that far.<\/p>\n

The NPC has been, rightly, labelled the jewel in New Zealand\u2019s crown as it has served, for 50 years, as both an engaging competition within its own right, and as a testing ground for aspiring players hoping to crack Super Rugby.<\/p>\n

It is certainly an enviable set-up \u2013 arguably the best developmental tool in world rugby. It is, arguably, the only semi-professional competition that brings such an eclectic mix of players together.<\/p>\n

The NPC is typically full of identified age-grade stars \u2013 young men who have recently played in the Junior World Championship. There are club rugby stalwarts \u2013 men who have never, or barely, cracked Super Rugby but bring a hard edge to proceedings.<\/p>\n

\"\"While most eyes will be focused on events in South Africa<\/a> between the Springboks and All Blacks, the NPC will be starting on a much lower profile (Photo Michael Steele\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

There are established Super Rugby players, former and recent All Blacks hoping to be recalled and interestingly, a host of overseas players \u2013 mainly Australians \u2013 sent over to be schooled in the rough and tumble of a provincial competition they can\u2019t emulate.<\/p>\n

It works on so many levels, for so many categories of players, not the least of which is giving seasoned talent a meaningful and useful way to fill in their time before assembling with their Super Rugby clubs in December.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s telling that Western Force<\/a> coach, Simon Cron, who has strong links to New Zealand, is sending 10 players to the NPC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are players in our environment who didn\u2019t get as many minutes in Super Rugby who need to be challenged both physically and mentally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NPC provides high-quality, physical match minutes in a fresh environment, ensuring these players return with greater experience and ready to push for Super Rugby selection.\u201d<\/p>\n

NZR even took the unprecedented step last year of carving out the NPC from the media rights package it sold to Sky TV. The outcome was that the competition will be co-exclusively broadcast between the subscription platform Sky and the Free to Air [FTA] TVNZ.<\/p>\n

t\u2019s not just the fight for media coverage and profile that is challenging the NPC, though. Typically most Super Rugby clubs have their rosters all but finalised by August so there are limited spaces open for players who have breakout provincial seasons.<\/p>\n

The national body was prepared to take a (small) financial hit in return for giving the NPC greater exposure.<\/p>\n

But as much as the NPC is loved by fans \u2013 it produced strong audience data last year \u2013 and is highly valued by NZR, it is increasingly difficult for it to retain relevancy and profile in the fast-m0ving wider rugby landscape.<\/p>\n

It is squeezed into a 12-week window between late July and late October, at a time when the All Blacks are in South Africa (typically they would be playing in the Rugby Championship) and then back in New Zealand to play the Bledisloe Cup just as the NPC is reaching the final stages.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the fight for media coverage and profile that is challenging the NPC, though. Typically, now, most Super Rugby clubs have their rosters all but finalised by August so there are limited spaces open for players who have breakout provincial seasons.<\/p>\n

\"<aWellington and Hawkes Bay\u201d width=\u201d1200\u2033 height=\u201d750\u2033 \/> Wellington and Hawkes Bay<\/a> battle it out in Round 1 of the NPC, a key development tool for New Zealand rugby (Photo Hagen Hopkins\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a school of thought that says there needs to be greater co-ordination between the two to build the sense of the NPC serving as a Super Rugby draft. It would certainly add intrigue and relevancy if Super Rugby clubs were forced to keep an agreed, minimum of contracts open for players in the NPC.<\/p>\n

And this lack of co-ordination and alignment between the NPC and Super Rugby alludes to the other major problem, which is there is no clarity about which of the two is responsible for elite talent development.<\/p>\n

Both provincial unions and Super Rugby clubs believe they are the rightful custodians of the country\u2019s emerging talent and that they should be singularly empowered to identify, recruit and develop elite players.<\/p>\n

The system is a mess and creates in-fighting between some provinces and Super Rugby clubs. And all this is why NZR has restructured its high-performance unit making three decisive changes.<\/p>\n

The highly respected Don Tricker is coming in November as high-performance director to oversee the All Blacks, former Chiefs<\/a> prop Michael Collins is taking up the newly created role of chief rugby officer, and former All Black Conrad Smith is going to be men\u2019s high-performance manager.<\/p>\n

This is maybe the real value of the NPC \u2013 that it can serve as the ideal place to develop a previously unrealised talent and it\u2019s something that is dear to [Conrad] Smith\u2019s heart as that was his route to the big time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Smith who will carry much of the responsibility for fixing up the development pathways and essentially building a better working relationship and more co-ordination between the NPC and Super Rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am well aware of the issues around New Zealand and the tension that exists between provincial, Super Rugby and New Zealand Rugby,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a tension that can be healthy but there is no easy answer around this. But there will be a solution somewhere and it will require hard work and good people coming together. I do know what I am getting myself into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of this work that Smith will undertake will be to ensure that New Zealand leaves a path open to late bloomers \u2013 to enable those who don\u2019t get identified at school or by Academy programmes to still be able to make the All Blacks.<\/p>\n

This is maybe the real value of the NPC \u2013 that it can serve as the ideal place to develop a previously unrealised talent and it\u2019s something that is dear to Smith\u2019s heart as that was his route to the big time.<\/p>\n

\"ConradSome of the greatest All Blacks came through the NPC, including NRZ\u2019s new head of performance Conrad Smith and Ma\u2019a Nonu (Photo Ross Land\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Smith was never an age-grade star, and left Francis Douglas College in New Plymouth to start a law degree in Wellington on no one\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n

It was only while he was playing for Old Boys University that he came to prominence, winning promotion to the Wellington team when they suffered a few injuries.<\/p>\n

From being a genuine amateur at the start of 2003, Smith finished the year having played in an NPC final and with a professional contract at the Hurricanes. A year later he was an All Black, and while its rare for players to traverse that route to the All Blacks these days, Smith sees it as vital that they at least have the opportunity to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is probably more challenging now than it was in my time, but I think you could say that about a lot of sports \u2013 the way they have tracked towards specialisation and identifying talent at a younger and younger age,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat can still work. I am not going to come in and suddenly say that this doesn\u2019t work \u2013 that it didn\u2019t work for me as a player so we can\u2019t have that. It works and it is done well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcademy systems produce great talent but they cannot exclude, and I don\u2019t think any academy would say they do exclude but their behaviour sometimes sorts of leans that way. \u201cThat is one of the many issues that our game has to deal with \u2013 how do you create pathways that allows for talent to come through that at the same time don\u2019t include players who are sitting outside be it an academy or a development programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am someone who didn\u2019t come through that system so it is something pretty close to my heart that exclusivity doesn\u2019t become a normal or be created.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NPC doesn\u2019t have the glamour of an All Blacks tour of South Africa but it is every bit as important in the NZR ecosystem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They say, when you meet a new baby in the extended family, it\u2019s poor form to ignore any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-845951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}