Phil Gifford: The red flag in New Zealand Rugby's bumper deal - and the next All Blacks superstar

Sam Cane of the All Blacks and teammates perform the haka before a test last season. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

One name alone, David Kirk, should raise a massive red flag in the battle over the $465 million American firm Silver Lake wants to pay to buy a 15 per cent slice of New Zealand Rugby's commercial rights.

The former All Blacks captain is opposed to the deal in its current form, and he's someone whose views should carry enormous weight.

Why? Start with a Rhodes Scholarship and an Oxford University degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. So put a tick in the box marked "super bright".

Carry on with a glittering business career as, among other things, the head of Australia's biggest media firm Fairfax and then Hoyts Cinemas in Australia and here. So put a tick, too, in the box marked "hugely successful in the real world".

If Kirk, the president of the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association, sees fish hooks in a business proposal, I'd say prepare for puncture wounds.

A plus is that New Zealand Rugby hasn't dismissed opposition from the players' association out of hand, and instead will run a mediation process supervised by Mike Heron QC.

Rugby dipping its toes into deals with private investment has a mixed record here, to put it mildly. The 40 per cent share businessman Murray Bolton had in the Blues ended in acrimony, and a buyout of Bolton's interests in 2018 by New Zealand Rugby.

Despite Bolton only having a minority interest, the board, bizarrely, was somehow split 50-50 between his appointees and those from the three rugby unions in the region.

All Blacks captain Sam Cane is one of several players opposed to a proposed sale of a minority stake in NZ Rugby's commercial rights. Photo / Getty Images

Along the way the Blues slumped to being virtually a laughing stock on the field. There were such bitter divisions the Auckland provincial team was unable to train at the Blues' headquarters, even when it was lying idle. Player recruitment was mediocre. And the Blues couldn't even forge, as every other Super Rugby franchise had, a relationship with a tertiary educational body, to help players emerge with a future outside the game.

Fingers crossed that every avenue is examined before a slice of rugby here is sold, and if one of those avenues involves Kirk voicing his opinions NZR needs to be hanging on every word he says.

Meanwhile, five talking points from this weekend's Sky Super Rugby Aotearoa.

That's why a lot of us love sport

For most of its 80 minutes, the game between the Chiefs and the Blues in Hamilton was a slog to watch, with more spills than thrills in the backlines, and scrums that took forever to set.

And then the Chiefs, who despite a scarily-long record losing streak have never actually been easybeats all season, found their mojo in the last minute. Damian McKenzie's try not only won the match for his side, 15-12, but also provided the most exciting, nerve-tingling, dramatic finish any game here has had this year.

Damian McKenzie scores the winning try against the Blues. Photosport

McKenzie is such a gifted player, but he can also be a frustrating one. Five minutes before the end, with the Chiefs down 12-8 he got the ball from a breakdown with a huge overlap on his right. Instead of passing he chopped back infield and the attack was smothered.

But in the end, off a magnificent storming run by Luke Jacobson, his explosive burst of pace was exactly what was needed to end a painful drought for the Chiefs.

Next week anti-vaxxers will admit they're wrong, there'll be sightings of unicorns, and Meghan Markle's family will get together for a lovely group hug

The Blues were two-to-one favourites to beat the Chiefs in Hamilton, and on paper that was realistic.

What'll be a concern for Blues' coach Leon MacDonald now will be that the scrum, despite having the use of four All Black props, wasn't the dominating force he would have liked it to be, that the lineout too often stuttered, and that until the ball got to the three-quarters, the Blues backline couldn't offer line-breaking dangers.

What was, in total, a lacklustre performance may have been a hangover from a draining battle with the Crusaders. The importance of Easter Saturday's game at Eden Park with a resurgent Hurricanes now takes on a new, much greater, importance.

A local boy makes good

Quinn Tupaea went straight from three years in the Hamilton Boys' High School First XV into the Waikato provincial side in 2018 when he was just 19. His sporting gifts include being a national championship rower for the school.

Obviously he's always been talented, but in 2021, as he showed in several dynamic bursts from second-five against the Blues, he's bigger, 5kg heavier at 102kg than when he came into professional rugby, and a lot stronger.

Quinn Tupaea has impressed for the Chiefs. Photosport

It all adds up to a dangerous package, one that in the not too distant future wouldn't look out of place in an All Black jersey.

It fits you well, Sir

How obvious has it become that the position that best suits Jordie Barrett is fullback? He's not, as his Hurricanes coach Jason Holland says, a world-class first-five. He's not the best wing in the country.

But in the course of scoring every point in the Canes' impressive 30-19 victory over the Highlanders in Dunedin he showed that only Will Jordan and McKenzie can be fairly compared to him as a fullback.

At 1.96m (6ft 5in) Barrett's made to measure for aerial contests, he's got a huge boot on him, and when he hits full speed you start to look for scorch marks where his feet flew over the turf.

The time has surely come at international level to give the man a straight shot at fullback. As he says, "Everyone knows I want to play No 15".

I swear, I have no axe to grind with referees, but come on guys

From the time as a child reporter at the Herald, when a test referee from the 1960s, Allan Farquhar, who worked in the printing department, had me laughing out loud when he said that "refereeing Colin Meads was like having a radio commentator in your ear every time you made a decision", I've believed referees were a much-maligned group.

But heaven would have needed to help us all, especially referees, if the try in the 33rd minute of the game in Dunedin that Bryn Evans scored for the Highlanders from a well-organised lineout drive had been crucial to the final result.

The whole thing started from a penalty to the Hurricanes being reversed by referee Brendan Pickerall after, in Pickerall's words, lock Isaia Walker-Leawere, "brushed" the back of Highlander Ethan de Groot's head, and then pushed him twice, barely moving the 122kg prop. It was a bit silly on Walker-Leawere's part, but you'd see more violence in an average preschool centre's sandpit. "There's absolutely no need for it," Pickerall scolded the Canes' astounded captain Ardie Savea. "We're not having it in this game."

As players have said forever, all they ask for is consistency. Last week at Eden Park a body slam didn't even get a card - but later turned into three-match ban. In Dunedin Walker-Leawere was basically penalised for being cheeky. It was, as the Sky commentary team said, "ridiculous".