Gregor Paul: Top All Blacks Beauden Barrett, Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock need to close lid on futures

All Blacks team line up for the national anthem. Photo / Photosport

COMMENT

The once-in-a-lifetime scenario of being able to play two seasons in Japan next year and miss just one Super Rugby campaign is now almost certainly not going to materialise and as a result the career plans of Beauden Barrett, Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock are being reconsidered.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen will not be alone in thinking that whatever all three are now planning, it would be in their best interests to not let their contract business drag on any longer than it already has.

All three had hoped to have long term deals agreed by early this year to allow them to come into Super Rugby without their respective futures being a constant source of speculation.

The All Blacks coaches had hoped much the same as they have seen first hand how a never-ending contract saga can eat away at a player, clutter their mind and destroy their form.

Cory Jane almost played his way out of the All Blacks in 2011 when he hummed and hawed about going to Japan then Ireland, only to ditch both ideas to finally extend his New Zealand Rugby contract.

His form, much like his thinking, was all over the place in Super Rugby and it was only once he had certainty about what he was doing off the field that he started to look like he knew what he was doing on it.

Hansen doesn't want to see his best talent get into a similar state ahead of this World Cup, but Barrett might be causing mild concern on that front.

Beauden Barrett. Photo / Photosport

By his own admission he's not happy with the way he's been playing and that was before he delivered a strangely inaccurate and distracted performance against the Crusaders last week.

No doubt, given his class and extreme talent he'll come right in time, but his form is likely to kick in much quicker if he simply gets on with signing a new contract to give himself the relief and peace of mind that comes in the wake of making major life decisions.

Of the players likely to be heavily involved in the All Blacks World Cup campaign, Barrett, Retallick and Whitelock are the only three yet to declare their post-2019 intentions.

Dane Coles, Joe Moody, Scott Barrett, Sam Cane, Ardie Savea, Aaron Smith, Anton Lienert-Brown, Jack Goodhue and Rieko Ioane are all staying, while Owen Franks, Liam Squire, Kieran Read, Ryan Crotty and Ben Smith are moving on.

It's probably not a coincidence that Coles, Barrett, Smith and Smith, Lienert-Brown, Goodhue and Ioane, who have clarity and certainty around their contracts, are all playing well.

The reason Barrett and Retallick are not sure what they are doing is that they were believed to be veering towards signing four-year extensions to stay in New Zealand, that included the right to play in Japan after the World Cup.

The attraction of that option was increased by the fact the Japanese, who are not allowed, as hosts, to play their domestic Top League competition during the World Cup, were planning to run their 2019 competition between January and May 2020 and their 2020 competition between October 2020 and January 2021.

Brodie Retallick. Photo / Photosport

Those dates meant it would have been feasible for Barrett and Retallick to play two Japanese campaigns in 13 months – at an estimated $1.2m per campaign - and yet only miss one Super Rugby season.

But the Japanese are now planning to push the 2020 season to a later start and kill the prospect of New Zealand's finest being back in time for Super Rugby 2021.

Without the two-for-one option the allure of Japan may have diminished somewhat for both and now they are having to consider whether they like the idea of playing one Top League campaign after the World Cup and returning to New Zealand in the middle of 2020.

That would require some NZR leniency to allow them to play in the Rugby Championship as they won't have fulfilled the eligibility criteria of having played in the preceding Super Rugby.

It may be that both players commit to long term deals that don't include the option of playing sabbaticals but instead take an extended period out of the game much like Richie McCaw, Conrad Smith and Ben Smith did.

In truth, the All Blacks hierarchy are probably beyond caring and just want both men to make their minds up and get on with putting pen to paper.

The situation will be viewed a little differently by the NZR top brass as the decisions which Barrett and Retallick ultimately make will have a huge bearing on the future direction of the player market.

NZR would rather not have to agree to precedent-setting contracts that win a long-term commitment but with a significant playing sabbatical period built-in.

The governing body doesn't want a sense of entitlement to develop where it becomes the norm for test players to view a season in Japan as part of a longer-term contract to stay in New Zealand.

Sam Whitelock and Nepo Laulala. Photo / Photosport

But NZR also knows that the market can be moved by critical mass – if too many senior players leave it tends to influence the next generation and before anyone knows it, New Zealand could suddenly be like South Africa where there simply isn't enough quality committed to the domestic scene to persuade emerging players with ambition to stay.

NZR can attribute the departures of Read and Ben Smith to the natural cycle – two veterans eking out a late career, overseas adventure. They can just about make the same argument with Franks and Crotty who are also moving on later this year, but know that the picture will alter significantly if even one of Barrett, Retallick or Whitelock decides to head offshore permanently.

Lose one of those three and it could be the beginning of the end – the moment in time when NZR loses what has for the last decade been a near iron-grip on the top echelon of players.

The players have all the leverage at the moment and they know it, hence we are in April and still no deal has been struck.

Whitelock's position is a little different as he's that bit older and probably the All Blacks captain-designate.

He's thought to also be looking to agree to a long-term deal through to 2023 but with a degree of complexity around extended rest periods.

Again, though, like Retallick and Barrett, there is a sense that he, too, needs to get on with tidying that up and revealing his intentions.

These three were a story back in October when it first became known they were looking at Japanese sabbaticals.

Six months have passed and they are still a story, but it is one that has lost much of its intrigue and one that really needs to end.