Phil Gifford: Why selecting All Blacks from overseas would be a terrible idea

Crusaders coach Scott Robertson and No. 10 Richie Mo'unga after winning last year's Super Rugby Pacific final. Photo / Photosport

Opinion

Scott Robertson is a much deeper thinker about the game than his bright-eyed, light-hearted approach to media questioning might indicate, so his nod to the idea of All Blacks being selected from overseas probably wasn’t a throwaway line.

South Africa and Australia have bowed to what they saw as the inevitable, and now select test players not based in their home countries. It hasn’t set the world on fire for the Wallabies. But if it’s good enough for a world powerhouse like the Springboks, why isn’t it good enough for the All Blacks?

Look closer though, and it’s soon clear that there are major differences between the South African and New Zealand situations.

The Sharks, Stormers and Bulls, rather than providing the sort of muscular, hard-nosed opposition in Super Rugby Pacific most of the Australian teams are incapable of, were playing in the European Champions Cup this year, with the likes of Leinster, Toulouse and Exeter. Potential South African test players are playing together, albeit in Europe.

The move of South African sides north makes perfect sense when you consider there’s only a one-hour time difference between Durban and Dublin. Broadcasters can offer live afternoon coverage to South African audiences.

So, South Africa’s found a tough competition for their players and fans. Does New Zealand, too, need something better than Super Rugby Pacific? Absolutely.

Interest in Super Rugby Pacific here only shows signs of revival when there’s a local derby, and even then, the days of packed crowds at Eden Park and Lancaster Park in the 1990s become a more distant memory every year.

But can you imagine how little interest there would be in a local competition, whether that’s Super Rugby Pacific or a revived NPC, if the games here were just auditions for an offshore contract?

All Blacks coaches enjoy the advantage of having such control over their players. They can dictate rest times, study players’ training statistics during Super Rugby Pacific and consult with Super coaches, in meetings that are usually constructive rather than combative.

In a grim twist, the threat of European money wooing away All Blacks too early in their careers has slightly eased as major clubs in England - too often, it seems, used as an ego trip for swaggering owners - tumble into bankruptcy. When an iconic club like London Irish faces debts of $NZ60 million, and Wasps make 167 players and staff redundant, times are catastrophic up north.

Nevertheless, with French clubs apparently still thriving, and the natural attraction to young Kiwis of a spell in Europe, there will always be class New Zealand players offshore.

In blunt terms, until the day arrives when the vast majority of the All Blacks are jetting away, and there is absolutely no alternative, picking All Blacks from overseas would a) be fraught with issues over players’ fitness and availability and b) probably wreck what is already a fragile provincial and Super Rugby Pacific set-up here.

Meanwhile, driving mauls continue to be a stunningly boring, mind-numbing way to drive fans away from the game.

In February, Wayne Smith made a plea for the driving maul to be banned. His idea had the advantage of being not only perfect, but easy to understand and implement.

This was Smith’s suggestion: if an attacking team is given a penalty, and kicks for touch inside the opposition’s 22, the defending team gets the throw to the lineout.

Hey presto, as magicians say, goodbye to the kick to touch, get the throw-in, maul, get another penalty, kick to touch, get the throw-in, maul - the sequences that drain away a viewer’s will to live.

As you might have sadly expected, despite the fact Smith is the world coach of the year and universally regarded as one of the smartest thinkers in the game, his brilliant idea hasn’t gained any traction at the World Rugby level.

In a fair, unselfish world, any administrator who loves the game more than their own team’s success with the maul should be trying to get the law changed as quickly as possible. The fact that’s not happening sadly speaks volumes for the attitude of World Rugby.