Former All Black Murray Mexted has ridiculed the decision by on-fire Hurricanes winger Fehi Fineanganofo to join PREM Rugby strugglers Newcastle Red Bulls instead of trying to compete for a place in Dave Rennie\u2019s Test squad.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Fineanganofo has lit up the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season with his try exploits, scoring 10 times to help his team into first place after eight matches.<\/p>\n
However, the 2024 rugby sevens Olympian came into the campaign having signed a two-year deal to move to England<\/a> for the 2026\/27 PREM Rugby season rather than duke it out in New Zealand for a place in the All Blacks squad.<\/p>\n New money has come into Newcastle<\/a> since their takeover by Red Bull, but this changeover has yet to manifest itself on the pitch as they remain bottom of the league with just a single win in 13 matches.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s where the focus should be\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Their squad is being overhauled in time for next season when Fineanganofo will join along with a plethora of other new signings, but Mexted can\u2019t get his head around why the up-and-coming winger has opted to exit New Zealand coming into his prime rugby years.<\/p>\n Appearing on the latest edition of the Devlin Sports Podcast Network show hosted by Martin Devlin<\/a>, the 72-year-old Mexted, who played in 34 consecutive Test matches for the All Blacks from 1979 to 1985, was asked to share his opinion on overseas selection.<\/p>\n His response was blunt, insisting that New Zealand<\/a> should not alter its current policy of only selecting locally based players at Test level. He went on to criticise the NZR for its alleged poor leadership in recent times and called out the weakening of the grassroots game.<\/p>\n He also took umbrage at Fineanganofo and his decision to quit Super Rugby<\/a> for the PREM<\/a> at such an early stage in his promising career.<\/p>\n The debate reared its head when Devlin put it to Mexted that New Zealand players should surely be allowed to remain eligible for the All Blacks if they went off to play for a Super Rugby team in Australia, claiming that Sydney and Brisbane were beautiful cities to live in and were only a short flight away.<\/p>\n Dave Rennie completes All Blacks management group as \u2018secret ingredient\u2019 from Steve Hansen\u2019s \u2018golden era\u2019 returns<\/a><\/p>\n Hurricanes boss defends Cam Roigard decision amid All Blacks legend\u2019s \u2018filthy\u2019 claim<\/a><\/p>\n Mexted, though, couldn\u2019t agree. \u201cI want the game to be strong for years to come,\u201d he insisted. \u201cWhen you start letting your players go away and play for other teams, the standard of the competition within New Zealand drops. I\u2019m talking about that at the moment with Super Rugby.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting away with guys that aren\u2019t big enough when it comes to playing against South Africa at six and eight. We\u2019re getting away with it. So, the more you dilute the New Zealand competition, the two guys that last ran NZR neglected club rugby and it\u2019s a gradual demise of club rugby.<\/p>\n \u201cI was talking about it this morning with a friend of mine, actually, the number of teams around clubs here in the Bay of Plenty and in Wellington, and the demise of rugby is real and I don\u2019t think it is being well managed in the last couple of leaders of our NZR \u2013 and that\u2019s where the focus should be.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should be on grassroots and developing that game so we get as many players as we can that are contesting at the top level who can compete when it comes to playing against the big boys. I am anti-players going away.<\/p>\n \u201cIf guys play for years for New Zealand and they go on this so-called sabbatical to Japan, that\u2019s fine. They have done the hard yards, they have made the team, they have stayed in the team. Give them a break because a change is as good as a rest in some respects, and the atmosphere up there in those clubs is completely different from ours down here. Completely different.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, a change in environment sometimes can make a player better, but when you are in your prime like the winger for the Hurricanes at the moment (Fineanganofo), who is going off to play for Newcastle, I don\u2019t know whether anybody has told him, but it\u2019s bloody cold in Newcastle. You would never wear shorts in Newcastle and if you were going for a surf, you\u2019d have to have a 4\/3 wetsuit, and you can hardly paddle\u2026 it\u2019s bloody cold.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephen Donald: Dave Rennie\u2019s All Blacks will \u2018morph\u2019 after Scott Robertson\u2019s unpopular game plan as Chiefs and Hurricanes provide blueprint<\/a><\/p>\n All Blacks great questions Ardie Savea\u2019s impact as Super Rugby teams won\u2019t getting into a \u2018bidding war\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Devlin cut in and put it to Mexted that picking players based overseas has been a successful policy for some other countries, so why not New Zealand?<\/p>\n \u201cOther countries have to do that because they never had the players and the internal competition,\u201d replied Mexted. \u201cOther things happen, and the South African situation, England of course and Europe is a lot closer and it\u2019s easier for them to go.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have so many rugby players; the more they get an opportunity, the bigger the talent pool is going to become, and that is what Rassie (Erasmus) has done over the last few years.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, we need that too, we need to keep our talent pool up so that there is real competition so that instead of having 6ft 2 loose forwards, we have 6ft 4 and 6ft 5 loose forwards.<\/p>\n