KEY POINTS:
The pessimists who oppose New Zealand becoming a republic believe anarchy would reign if the Queen didn't.
In their eyes all that stands between us and chaos is a remote, frumpish, Anglo-German granny.
A similar fearfulness and neurotic attachment to an illusory security blanket has dominated the debate, now in full swing, over whether rugby players who go overseas should be considered for the All Blacks.
Those against argue that if the ban on overseas-based players is lifted, it will herald the end of New Zealand rugby as we know it. The floodgates will open, talent will depart en masse and the domestic game will wither and die. Will the last decent player to leave please turn off the floodlights?
Several decades of social and economic change and the advent of professionalism have certainly taken a toll on the grassroots but I would have thought the game was more resilient than that. Is rugby's place in the community and its hold on the nation really so tenuous that its very survival hinges on this single prohibition?
The antis can't argue that the ban is working as a player-retention device - if it was, we wouldn't be having the debate - so they're reduced to insisting that things would be much worse without it. There are two aspects to consider - the domestic game and the All Blacks - but thus far the pessimists have focused their angst almost exclusively on the former. Yet the two are mutually dependent. The system produces All Blacks; the All Blacks fund the system.
The All Blacks' mystique - and their appeal to sponsors and a global audience - derives from 100 years of excellence, success and unmistakable style. The inability to handle the pressures of a World Cup campaign has dimmed the aura somewhat, but the All Blacks are still the most successful and glamorous team in world rugby. But what happens if, shorn of their stars, they're neither successful nor glamorous?
Will they remain the biggest drawcard in the game, able to generate revenue from one-off split-the-takings matches in far-flung stadia? Will adidas continue to pay tens of millions of dollars a year for the privilege of having its logo on the black jersey? Seven members of the World Cup squad are now playing overseas and an eighth (Reuben Thorne) will shortly follow.
With the likes of Marty Holah, Sam Tuitupou and Rico Gear also leaving, our pool of international quality players has shrunk, almost overnight, by roughly a third.
If that happens again this year and next year, then simple arithmetic and common sense would suggest that the All Blacks will lack the depth, quality and experience to maintain the dominance we expect, if not take for granted.
Before last year's World Cup the just deposed England coach, Brian Ashton, reckoned he had a pretty good idea what England's starting XV at the 2011 tournament would be. If Graham Henry were to attempt the same exercise, it would either be a stab in the dark or wishful thinking.
How would New Zealanders feel about just making up the numbers at our own party in 2011, fielding a team of honest triers while a galaxy of stars twiddles their thumbs in Europe? How would we react if the All Blacks become just another team? The answer is that the decline of the All Blacks is as unthinkable as the implosion of domestic rugby.
Predicting the future by extrapolating from the present is generally a futile exercise. The doomsters tend to discount our ability to learn from our mistakes and our capacity for ingenuity when necessity becomes the mother of invention.
The Crusaders' dynasty is built on foundations laid after a soul-searching re-think prompted by finishing dead last in the first Super 12 in 1996.
Professional rugby is in its infancy: who knows how it will evolve? For that matter, revolution isn't out of the question.
Go back a few years and New Zealand was patting itself on the back for having managed the transition to professionalism far more adroitly than other countries.
Our system of central contracts was universally envied and we shook our heads pityingly at the havoc being wreaked on English rugby by the new breed of private investors who couldn't tell a tight-head from a kicking tee. Now some voices are advocating private investment as the solution.
Rugby is now discovering what New Zealanders in other spheres have known for a long time: it's a big, bad world out there. Rather than making life harder for ourselves through self-imposed handicaps, we should be maximising our resources.
