ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?
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Our only real advantage is centrally contracted players managing workloads and being prepped to peak at the right time. Players being contracted primarily to clubs is a headache for NH unions - they have to negotiate to get them, and things like camps are bloody hard.
Pick overseas players and kill your local comp. To be the best oyu have to play the best. Super used to be the best. Now NH comps are the best. And you see that with the international results.
It's no surprise that 2015 SF were all SANZAAR unions. We took that and went backwards - while NH got into gear and lifted their game. Can we do the same?
I think the quality would drop even more if this gets allowed ... it is fundamentally incompatible with Super as a
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@nzzp said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
Which is why they need to ensure that they have the best AB team they can put out and I think we have got to the point where some overseas players would improve our squad.
We've let Super run down to the point where it isn't as good at preparing players for Tests.
I know I'm in a minority, but for rugby reasons NZR should have fought tooth and nail to keep SA in Super. The utter arrogance of thinking they could build their own comp, drag in the 'good' Aussie sides without national body support is astonishing. It's been so short sighted it is a colossal failure.
COVID 19 did not help there. There had been rumblings for years and the pandemic gave them the perfect opportunity to make the move. I believe it has helped them and hindered us
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@nzzp said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
We've let Super run down to the point where it isn't as good at preparing players for Tests.
I know this is commonly accepted as fact, but I do think it stands in pretty stark opposition to the fact that the Boks have a heap of players in Japan playing, at best, super-lite who step up to test rugby just fine.
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In the long run protectionism never works. Give the players their freedom and let the animal spirits fire an All Black revival.
I'd be really excited to see the players taking back to the All Blacks environment what they've learned from the best club competitions, teams and coaches from around the world. Being trapped in Super Snore ain't letting the players progress.
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@nzzp said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
Which is why they need to ensure that they have the best AB team they can put out and I think we have got to the point where some overseas players would improve our squad.
We've let Super run down to the point where it isn't as good at preparing players for Tests.
I know I'm in a minority, but for rugby reasons NZR should have fought tooth and nail to keep SA in Super. The utter arrogance of thinking they could build their own comp, drag in the 'good' Aussie sides without national body support is astonishing. It's been so short sighted it is a colossal failure.
Agreed, the herald is of the opinion that NZR saw the opportunity to ‘own super rugby’ so they had a shiny product to entice private equity.
While super rugby across the 5 nations wasn’t possible during Covid, there is no reason why we couldn’t have agreed with partners that we all do our own thing until we can reconvene when it is possible to do so.
SA got lucky as they had a comp to go to that was improving in quality all the time and super shat the bed as Aus teams quality fell of a cliff at the same time.
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@nzzp said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
Which is why they need to ensure that they have the best AB team they can put out and I think we have got to the point where some overseas players would improve our squad.
We've let Super run down to the point where it isn't as good at preparing players for Tests.
I know I'm in a minority, but for rugby reasons NZR should have fought tooth and nail to keep SA in Super. The utter arrogance of thinking they could build their own comp, drag in the 'good' Aussie sides without national body support is astonishing. It's been so short sighted it is a colossal failure.
Huge
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I find it very interesting that a country as innovative as NZ now feels it needs to send its players north to develop their rugby brains
You have the cattle
You need to innovate and find the style which suits your players’ bodies & brains which also breaks down the other teams’ defences regularly
Like in the past
You, SA, England, Ireland and France can all beat each other on any given day
Even though you boys are sulking, this is the most competitive rugby has been in decades
And it’s brilliant
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@MiketheSnow said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
You need to innovate and find the style which suits your players’ bodies & brains which also breaks down the other teams’ defences regularly
One of the strengths of SR has become a weakness. Generally all the NZ sides play a very similar pattern and there is top down involvement from NZR to all the sides
That's great if the national side is run by Henry, Smith & Hansen and they are the ones setting the blueprint.
What happens when the style of play needs an overhaul. How slow is that process?
I'd like to see more experiments at SR level. Do the younger coaches have that ability or are they all taught to coach the same way? Does it take a Cotter style coach returning from offshore to have the knowledge and confidence to try something else? Perhaps more teams would enable more experiments too?
The national side trying to use a SR gameplan (that works against SR sides) is not having the same level of success. They now need to learn fast at Test level. That's why I was always in favour of more overseas experience in the coaching group.. even if Robertson was head coach he should not have been allowed to load his team with his SR assistants and contemporaries. One or two coaches who'd learnt some tough lessons at Test level with an inferior squad would add a different perspective
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
That's great if the national side is run by Henry, Smith & Hansen and they are the ones setting the blueprint.
What happens when the style of play needs an overhaul. How slow is that process?
Very slow.
That was something I commented on over the past few years how there didnt seem to be the collaboration or direction from the top, identifying issues and addressing them form the higher level.
Back in the day, Cron was doing sessions with all NPC provinces to try and upskill our forwards, sure it was all the same blueprint, but it set us in good stead, problem was, this seemed to fade and other teams caught up and we do not seem to be doing anthing to address the issues and develop players where we have gaps or underlying weaknesses.
Not saying above is the answer, just that it was an approach, that worked for a good period of time, but it would seem we rested on our laurels and now almost a decade later we are reaping the rewards of 'under-investment' in our grass roots, for want of a better phrase.
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
I think our coaching is too narrow
how many Super rugby games did Leon MacDonald, Mark Hammett, Todd Blackadder and Aaron Mauger get between them for how many Super titles?
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
tldr for the above post:
I don't think we have a player quality problem. I think our coaching is too narrow
yeah, had similar thoughts myself over the last few years, we might only really produce 5-6 10's (for example) each year....and at least 4 of them will play very similar...and because the top players have a relatively short season to shine theyre trying to play exactly like the current AB's...so its become a little echo chamber
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
tldr for the above post:
I don't think we have a player quality problem. I think our coaching is too narrow
You would think Vern Cotter's success would be a light bulb moment but this is NZR we are talking about....
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
tldr for the above post:
I don't think we have a player quality problem. I think our coaching is too narrow
And when we have gone large on bringing overseas based coaches home, we have generally failed wiht our acquisitions (e.g., Mooar) and not been able to get the real quality candidates (e.g., until recently, Joseph, and of course Brown).
You look at what Cotter has done with the Blues and it makes you wonder about the general quality of Super coaching itself. McMillan is starting to get there, the Canes now appear to have quality, the Crusaders do not, and the Highlanders should be much better this year.
Razor hasn't really ever had to face up against absolute best quality coaching teams - across the board - before and I think that is a crucial aspect as well. I'm not sure we can address that unless we are really prepared to start spending a lot on coaches. I know Jono was back for a bit, but NZ didn't have a quality role (and I assume payment) to prevent him from leaving for Lyon.
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@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@nzzp said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
Which is why they need to ensure that they have the best AB team they can put out and I think we have got to the point where some overseas players would improve our squad.
We've let Super run down to the point where it isn't as good at preparing players for Tests.
I know I'm in a minority, but for rugby reasons NZR should have fought tooth and nail to keep SA in Super. The utter arrogance of thinking they could build their own comp, drag in the 'good' Aussie sides without national body support is astonishing. It's been so short sighted it is a colossal failure.
Agreed, the herald is of the opinion that NZR saw the opportunity to ‘own super rugby’ so they had a shiny product to entice private equity.
While super rugby across the 5 nations wasn’t possible during Covid, there is no reason why we couldn’t have agreed with partners that we all do our own thing until we can reconvene when it is possible to do so.
SA got lucky as they had a comp to go to that was improving in quality all the time and super shat the bed as Aus teams quality fell of a cliff at the same time.
You obviously have not been watching the Welsh teams very closely. They are generally dire with their standard being miles below what us old guys fondly remember Welsh teams being like during the days of proper tours. Also remembering Sth African teams were mostly mid table in Super Rugby but, with the exception of the Lions, they are up with the front runners in United Championship alongside Leinster and Munster.
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@MiketheSnow said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
You need to innovate and find the style which suits your players’ bodies & brains which also breaks down the other teams’ defences regularly
One of the strengths of SR has become a weakness. Generally all the NZ sides play a very similar pattern and there is top down involvement from NZR to all the sides
This is an interesting one eh - I tend to agree that it is too homogenous, though there are some differences. The highlanders under Joseph played quite a different game to others; the blues this year; the chiefs under Rennie.
The differences are nowhere near as stark as say the end of the amateur era where you had e.g. Otago pretty much playing touch vs the totally forward oriented Waikato. -
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@DaGrubster said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@sparky said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
@antipodean And yet, they lose out on earnings that they could make playing international rugby for their home country if they do sign with a European club. No wonder James Lowe and Bundee Aki opted to play for Ireland and Uini Antonio opted to play for France. That's three world-class talents the NZR position lost right there. They won't be the last.
The players mentioned were in the Nz system. James Lowe may have become an AB at some point and Ali was behind Nonu, Williams and Crotty and the all Blacks had unbelievable depth and one of their best evert squads. So you can understand some people leaving as they didn’t see a pathway to the ABs at that point.
Not everything is black and white and they may not have become the players they have without going to a new enviroment and playing in Ireland.
The Nz policy has worked for a long time and it has rarely been an issue for NZ as they have mostly been able to keep the players they wanted to keep.
Of course things evolve and perhaps now is the time to look at changing it. I am on record as wanting to allow a couple of squad positions open to overseas players if needed.
If the NZR business plan has one weakness, it is that the whole thing is dependant on the All Blacks continuing to be the All Blacks i.e being the best, winning trophies and keeping that mystique about them.
Which is why they need to ensure that they have the best AB team they can put out and I think we have got to the point where some overseas players would improve our squad.
Excellent post,. you are 100% correct.
NZR need to see the wood for the trees.
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@DaGrubster makes a great point.
I find it hilarious that NZR want to continue to confine Super Rugby a side-show until the 'real rugby' begins.
It's effectively a warm-up comp for our All Black players because it's such a short comp and we refuse to increase the number of games because we want to 'save' the players for the All Blacks.
The strategy's all well and good if All Blacks are continuing to be the pinnacle of world rugby but that's not the case and it hasn't been for 8 years - additionally it's a fact the All Blacks and Wallabies results have gotten progressively worse since the length of Super Rugby was shortened (2020-2024). So much for this strategy of careful player management right?
Make Super Rugby a proper full-season comp, can't just put all your eggs in the basket of a declining All Blacks side - which is now only the 3rd or 4th best side in the world.
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@Duluth said in ABs picking overseas players - inevitable?:
tldr for the above post:
I don't think we have a player quality problem. I think our coaching is too narrow
Our ABs coaching would appear to be too narrow. The Canes and Blues played a distinctly more forward based direct game, and the ABs don't seem to have taken any of that on board
